LCC - R1: Rage vs Lone Wolves

[Enigmatic Immortal]

This round begins at 12:00 PM PACIFIC TIME on Friday! Good Luck!!!

[Aegis of Espiridion]

Reality twisted, warped, and spat. Two figures fell from five metres in the air.

The orc landed first by virtue of his greater bulk. His guttural oomph echoed amongst the dusty rocks. Dusky green muscle rippled beneath layers of thick fur robes as he pulled himself together, one massive paw cradling his throbbing head.

“Ow,” he growled in annoyance rather than pain, glaring blunt fire at the change of scenery. The snowbound tundra of northern Salvar seemed a lifetime away, as every stuffy breath he took now shimmered with hazy heat. Dark roiling clouds of sulphurous smoke, their bellies red and flickering as if alive and hungry, hung low overhead as he ditched the constrictive garments.

“Have we finally managed to find our way to hell…?” a second voice groaned from nearby, similarly shrugging out of his heavy cloaks in undignified haste. Long black hair flowed free of a fur-lined hood that steamed in the sudden furnace, and bright blue eyes strained from beneath a sheltering hand to adjust to the flaming shadows.

“Too comfortable,” Orun snarled, baring tusk-like fangs. “Pick yourself up.”

“You and your white hair…” Ywain moaned again, but did as told with surprising alacrity. Regaining his footing upon a gravely path winding between jagged volcanic rocks, the taste of rotten eggs stifled the back of his throat. He found no peace in the uniformly charred and scorched grey of his surroundings. Aside from that, though, neither he nor Orun seemed to be harmed.

Behind them loomed one wickedly spiked peak; ahead of them, across a gaping chasm spanned by a single threadbare rope bridge, loomed a second. Peering cautiously over the precipice, Orun found himself staring into the depths of the abyss itself. Wisps of steamy cloud floated far below, occasionally threatened by fingers of blazing lava spilling and suppurating from the cracked earth. Waves of blistering heat soared upwards into his exposed face, accompanied by the distant roars of churning molten rock.

“That’s a long way down,” Ywain noted, joining Orun at his precarious perch.

“We’re not headed there, human.”

“Not yet, at least?” The young man reached down to grab a perfectly smoothed pebble from the ashes at his feet. He took a moment to admire its obsidian beauty, tossing it into the air and snatching it when it fell again.

Grunting, the orc turned his attention to the peak opposite. Ywain knew that Orun’s eyes would have adjusted better to the change in lighting, simply by virtue of his blood. They had not yet travelled together for long, but here as before they were each other’s only friend.

Thus when the orc warily unslung the shield from his back, Ywain quickly picked up on his guarded movements. He dropped the pebble back to the sandy ashes from whence it had come, and unfastened the holster at his waist.

“Show yourself, whoever’s there!” he called, letting the orc take the lead. The threadbare bridge swayed dangerously at their approach, their one artificial lifeline in a landscape of death.

The black-cloaked masked figure, which with a wave of its hand had transported them here from that abandoned fort in the middle of wintry oblivion, had mentioned something ominous about challengers and tournaments. How much longer then did they have before things really did go to hell?

[Skie and Avery]

The bridge was the most comfort he'd felt in a long while. Naked, as he always was, the feel of the thick board under his feet was almost more sturdy than he knew it was. A breath of hot air puffed up from the chasm, a current strong enough to twist his auburn hair from his waist to his shoulders. It was searing, cooled only enough from it's long lift upwards to not burn skin. Droplets of sweat bubbled to the surface on Avery's skin. It dripped down his tanned cheek, plastering long locks to the sides of his face. As he walked further across the bridge, he began to lightly fan his large black wing. The leathery surface caught the rising heat, and what little breeze he could tame to waft across his sweat soaked back was not cool enough to make much of a difference. Yet, they had to push forward.

Craning his head back, he turned his green gaze to his companion. The air rippled with the heat, so much so that Crispen was a mere shadow behind him. He worried for a moment if the Akashiman would be able to tolerate this place. After all, the tournament officials seemed to want to drop them in the least hospitable nook that Lornius had to offer. In the strange dim light of the lava's glow beneath them, Avery thought he could see some movement beyond, though it was even more difficult to make out than his Akashiman lover's form behind him. He moved forward, straining his senses to get an idea of what may lay at the end of the fraying rope bridge. The rope was course under his hands, but with every movement he and his companion made the bridge would sway almost dangerously. His footing would stumble against the uneven line of the boards under his step and he would need to reach out to steady himself. The rope was almost a weapon in itself. Thick, rough fibers stuck out all along it. It was dried and stiff from too long spent over the dry, fiery breath of the lava. Every touch was almost painfully splintering. It was perfect in this place.

Ahead, a voice called out and Avery lifted his left hand. The silver blades on his fingers caught the light and flashed behind him just barely. It was the only way he could think to signal the assassin behind him without calling out, though it occurred to him a moment too late that it may have been seen better than his voice would have been heard over the roar of air that moved though the gorge like an angry spirit. He'd been thinking to leave tactics to his lover, who'd been better schooled for this. Avery had high aspirations for Lornius, but the only weapon he felt he truly brought with him this day was his rage.

[Green is the new black.]

Re-post -- posted with the wrong account before. All bunnies for between Lone Wolves teammates approved.

“Your trail of blood and violence sends tremors through the strands of fate," the black-masked apparition had told them, half a world away. Its voice was frigid wind and dying gasps. The human Ywain had not known the identity of their strange guest, but even in the low light of their freezing shelter, Orun recognized the Aspect of Strigz, ancient spirit of War. “More threads converge in a distant land. Some must be tied, others cut. Glory awaits those who pay the blood price. Do you accept this trial?” The half-Orc then answered first with a simple, guttural 'yes'. Only the foolish refuse the Old Gods.

Thus it came to pass that two wayward companions born of the cold stood on the precipice of fire. Orun recalled once finding such molten rivers in the deepest recesses of Salvar's Kalev highlands, which according to legend were the shattered remains of a single monumental mountain. Deep within its rockey crags, the earth had itself melted and churned. He never expected to visit such a place again so soon. Wind-swept soot stung his nostrils, nothing like the crisp, clean air of the North.

He could feel the heat in his blood as he stepped upon the gently swaying bridge. The anticipation. Hot air rushed up from below, like breath from an colossal beast. Something moved across the ravine. As his companion called out, someone appeared on the bridge's far side, a silhouette through the haze. Orun grinned, revealing rows of yellow teeth, and readied his shield. His fiery eyes narrowed as he stepped slowly forward, trying to take the measure of his foe. He tensed like a coiled snake, muscles tightening beneath his studded leather armor.

He snapped into motion like a whip. A knife appeared in his hand, a crude curved blade of polished iron. In the same heartbeat, he hurled it. It spun across the crevice in an orange blur, catching the molten glow from below as it sailed through the air toward his foe. He immediately crouched and raised his shield, sensing Ywain's presence behind him. The human drew his crossbow pistol. Their trail of blood and violence stretched out before them.

[Less Careful]

Cris hated Lornius. Xenophobic to a point, the bounty hunter's olive skin and slanted eyes drew no end of disgusted glares. As if any of the ashen-faced degenerates deserved better than his presence. Even his own partner, the bat-winged demon of lust, did little to avoid his scorn. But he had passion. Fury. Rage. And, he admit with no shortage of revulsion, part of him liked Avery. Too much.

Still, the money was too good on the island, and winning this tournament would bring such a reputation in witchhunting that he would never be out of work.

And now, in this first match, his blood boiled in rage as much as the heat. His coat made matters worse, though he didn't dare take the heavy body armor off. Instead, he boiled under the leather and steel in his obstinence, following the nude demon across the cracked stone to the failing bridge and the mist. As Avery began his crossing, Cris ground his heel into the rocks beneath him, pouring his steadily burning anger into stabilizing the right post, supporting it with a casing of granite.

Just as he finished that post and was about to start on the second, silver flashed in the dim light from below. Avery's hand went up, signaling a halt. Moments later, motion stirred the thick cloud of fumes, and something bluntly slammed into the Akashiman's left shoulder, jarring it into an explosion of pins and needles. Glancing down, he saw the curved blade tumbling into the chasm.

The simmering hatred and fury that Crispen had leashed until now burst, and he shrieked his rage as he grabbed for the mace at his hip. "Avery!" he called out in warning to his partner, driving his heel into the ground. The earth split under his stomping force, and the enraged warrior spun, slamming the flanges of his mace into the still-weak post. It shattered against his loathing, and a manic, cathartic grin split the madman's visage as the bridge twisted violently before him, threatening collapse.

[Aegis of Espiridion]

His hand had only just come up with the miniature crossbow when the world lurched violently. Involuntarily his finger depressed the trigger mechanism. With the whisper of well-oiled whipcord, the precious quarrel flew off into the thick-lying smog, lost immediately from sight.

Drunken and desperate, Ywain reached out instinctively for support. The guardrope on his left drew taut, so he gathered his weight on that side. Thinking quickly, he managed to return the crossbow to its holster as the bridge continued to sway, then loosened the basket-hilted broadsword sheathed on his other hip.

Precious, precarious moments passed as he fought to regain some sense of equilibrium. Only gradually would the oscillations subside – how glad was he now of old Maester Corrigee’s droning lessons in Higher Mechanical Arithmathiques! – and they dared not remain idle. But both he and Orun adapted well to adversity, and their opponents’ ploy was not entirely unexpected. He caught one last glimpse of the silhouette on the opposite side as the murky haze started to settle once more. The bridge couldn’t be that long. He had to go for it.

“Orun,” he warned the half-orc, taking a couple of nimble steps back to give himself a running start.

“You and your ideas.” Orun grunted and braced himself low, shield held invitingly above his head, free hand clutching the guardrope for balance. “Do it.”

Ywain sprinted forth even before the half-orc finished speaking. He timed his first leap perfectly, arriving dead-centre of the shield in a tensed crouch just as Orun employed his quite formidable strength. Using it as a springboard, his lithe form catapulted towards and beyond where he had seen the silhouette last.

Up high, everything changed. The fiery miasma lightened, such that he could see the heavy-duty ropes fraying and snapping, strand by individual strand. Ominous cracks echoed like gunshot over the bubble of the lava far below. Stale wind fanned the sweat that trickled uncomfortably inside his jerkin, blasting him with the unabating heat. Illuminated by the wrathfully frothing furnace, he must have made quite the majestic sight.

Until gravity reasserted itself in the blink of an eye, and something fleeting and swift ducked out of his way at the last possible moment. Ywain came down hard on a patch of rocky ground just beyond the precipice, rolling expertly with the impact and somehow coming to a ready crouch with only a handful of bruises for his trouble.

“Hell,” he spluttered for the second time in recent memory. The pain left in the wake of the bone-jarring impact didn’t stop him from drawing his sword. “I’m definitely in some sort of hell. And I’m blaming it on the pair of you, if you must know.”

Ywain leapt at the nearest of his opponents with a measured backhand slash, determined to keep them on the back foot until Orun arrived.

[Skie and Avery]

Despite the fact that he'd been tense, preparing for their opponents to spot them, he hadn't been prepared for the knife. A blade whipped by his shoulder, a whirling mess of light. He'd barely had time to start to duck to the side when an angry roar echoed through the air behind him. Did Cris call out his name? He began to glance backward at his partner, the manic madman who was sometimes a lover, and the world tipped beneath him. As his footing slipped, he reached out. His bladed fingers grabbed at and grazed the remaining rope as the other side snapped and gave under him. As the bridge twisted, he could hear the crack and hush of rope fraying and for a moment before the panic set in he was able to curse the rotten luck of a clumsy grab with bladed fingers.

As his knees hit the board and slipped past, he grabbed at the planks stretching across the bottom ropes and gained purchase. His legs were dangling now in the hot air, and every movement felt like it would be a terrible idea as the heat billowing upwards singed his skin. A bestial growl escaped as he began to scramble for a better grip on the bridge. A body sailed above him, towards the precipice behind them where Crispen still stood. Ahead, Avery knew there was another. Which was the one that threw the blade? He didn't know, but didn't care. His body surged upwards, trying now to find a way to get his footing once more on the slanted, shaking bridge.

No matter if the figure ahead was the cause of this terrible chain of events, he would destroy him. The taste of copper stung at his tongue as he envisioned the blood that would course over his fists like the molten waves that churned below. After a moment, he pulled himself upward and began to bound towards the orc. Through the rippling heat waves, he could just begin to see the other man, though the bounce and groan of the broken bridge below them was a distraction always present in his mind now that he was sweating but free from the perilous threat of free-fall into fire.

[Green is the new black.]

Any skald could sing of orcs who fought with the berserk fury of a wildfire, storms of steel and screams. Yet, as his nude foe came rushing across the creaking bridge, Orun remained calm and still. Only his eyes, like the cracks in a forge, hinted at the intensity within. He tightened his grip on his shield and flared his nostrils.

He crouched; watched. His foes had already damaged their side of the bridge – to what ends he couldn't tell, but at present it only put their half at a steeper, less steady incline than his. The planks shook beneath his feet, forcing him to stay low to keep his balance. Still, he knew that his undamaged half of the bridge provided must stabler footing. Lava bubbled and spat far below. Merely a fleeting distraction; death was death, regardless of its manner. He hooked his right arm around the guardrope. Wait.

What felt like minutes passed in seconds. His unclothed adversary neared. Like an burstng volcano, Orun exploded into action. With all his strength, he threw his weight to the side, forcing the entire bridge to heave violently to the right. In the same twisting motion, he drove forward. Though a simple circle of wood, his shield was thick and sturdy, and with the half-orc's crushing strength behind it, it became a battering ram, surging right toward the naked maniac.

[Less Careful]

"When fighting multiple opponents, isolate one and busy the others." Crispen could almost hear the stodgy old Aleraran professor's lecture ringing through the cavern. He had done exactly that, he knew, as he spotted the figure sailing over the chasm to join him. "If you have an ally in your battles," the lecture continued, "lend aid when you can. When you cannot, make no attempt to lend aid."

The mad mercenary's grin spread wider still as he swept low to strike the remaining post at its fortified base. "Sacrifices must be made." Under his indignation, the stone cracked and shattered against furious steel, and once more the bridge shook, before it fell free to swing against the far chasm wall.

Without stopping to watch his work unfold, Cris carried through the turn, leaping at his newfound plaything even as it landed. A quick measure of his features showed dark brown hair, pale blue eyes, and pale, weathered skin. A Salvaran, then, and likely a knight by his stance and the angle of the claymore as it connected with his mace. The strength of the blow rang through the steel and rocked his joints, showing the skill with which he wielded the blade.

"No, this is not hell," he replied to the northerner, launching his shoulder into the knight's chest. "But I'll be happy to send you!"

[Aegis of Espiridion]

Staggering backwards beneath the weight of the parry, Ywain turned into a neat side-step that somehow evaded the worst of the shoulder tackle. The grazing impact took him perilously close once more to the precipice, heatwaves blasting at his exposed face from the volcanic abyss below. He shielded his eyes instinctively, hair flowing unchecked amongst the flighted cinders. Rubbing his sore chest with the back of his sword hand, he used the opportunity to glance quickly at the shattered pillars.

“Let me guess, you didn’t like your friend?”

The voice of reason inside him exulted: said friend had fallen along with the bridge, which meant his opponents hadn’t taken the opportunity to gang up on him. It didn’t worry Ywain so much that he too had left Orun behind. The half-orc was a survivor, and a hardy son of the north at that. He would find a way clear.

The voice of instinct, however, advised caution. Ywain hadn’t lived as an orphan in Berevar without picking up a lasting suspicion of what seemed too good to be true. His years as a knight in Rousay had merely tempered him, not tamed him.

So he voiced his doubts outright. Nonchalant and subtly mocking he turned back to his opponent, unintentionally mirroring the other man’s movements.

“Or is this your idea of a trap?”

It didn’t matter. The former Salvic knight presented again with a flourish, long legs carefully balanced in the coarse ashen sand. His opponent brought up the flanged mace in response, still grinning manically. Ywain had seen those folded eyes before, in the eastern traders that often stopped over at Rousay bearing their luxurious cargos of spice and silk and tea. Flickering fire reflected in grimy brass buttons, catching the young man’s frown in one of them. The formal military style of the garments reminded him too much of Salvar’s parasitic nobility.

Thrusting all those churning thoughts from his mind, Ywain leapt to the attack. In his experience as a left-handed fencer, opponents often had trouble adjusting to the sensation of wrongness when fighting him, or indeed even identifying the cause of their discomfort. He used this to his advantage, probing his opponent’s guard with a rapid flurry of thrusts, forcing the mace-wielder back against his edge of the cliff and keeping his attention on the tip of the sword.

Two steps more… one step more…

And then Ywain switched hands, tossing his blade from one hand to the other with consummately confident ease. His leading leg lashed out low in a sweeping kick at his opponent’s footing, but that was only the feint. The true strike lay in his swordarm, extending like a coiled whip into a controlled upwards slice. If it didn't cleave his opponent's chin in two, it would send him overbalanced over the edge.

At least, that was the plan.