Round 1 Veteran: Roht Mirage Vs Leoric

[Roht Mirage]

Bunny was approved.

Vodka, flowing upward, burned just as much and tasted twice as horrible. For some reason, that was the thought that filled her mind as she careened backward. She caught herself on a table, but only after the table caught her by planting it's edge into her lower back. Sand splashed in her wake, forming a multi-hued slug trail from where she had been standing. One second more, and the sand that had billowed from her sleeves would have solidified into blades. Yet, with the formation halted, it became little more than stylized spray as the brawler throttled her around the pub.

If not for the armored corset under her clothing, the blow might have undone her. Fear was fleeting, though. The whole situation was too surreal. Him, from tavern jester to villain so quickly... and her, a would-be temptress looking down at her deflated blouse with a dark, wet pattern of alcoholic bile. Wiping -and ruining- one sleeve across her mouth, she looked up at him and growled, “One night stand? Not on your- Hands off!”

The smug sand-licker's grip tightened on her staff, and his eyes said, “Just try to take it from me.”

A wry, pained smile turned her face. “Leoric, dear lord of the bottle,” Astarelle razzed as she pushed herself from the table, “Would you care to join me...” The sandy trail painting the floor vibrated and separated, color from color. The majority returned to rest, but the whitest of the white grains swept toward her shoes, then spiralled upward. Brushing her sinuous legs, her subtle hips, and her humble chest, the tinkling points of white crystal raced, as if drawn by a vortex, to her face. “In a dance?” she finished as her voice was cut off. The sand formed one solid mass, a featureless white mask, nothing but benignly-slanted slits for eyes.

With as much speed as she dared, she spun toward the next table, keeping it between her and her abuser. Sand, as if answering her call in his stead, moved with her. The trail across the floor kicked into the air, rattling hard against the undersides of tables, and the granite-toned sand hidden in her forgotten cloak burst to life, towing the fabric for a moment before it broke free. The air filled with sharp, glistening grains and softer, thicker clots of dust.

The all-encompassing whisper of the desert hid the sound of Astarelle's shoes as she attempted the tight spin of Farohtian dance and only succeeded by bracing herself, hand over hand, on the table's edge. Her head felt a pace behind, and her sheltered eyes a world away, for the dust that joined her sand in the air rendered the room nothing but off-grey shapes. She could feel the room, though. Each collision of sand spoke to her -in its own time- to tell her the shape of all that impeded it. She could feel Leoric... in more detail than she wished. The twitching lines of his muscles, the fluttering of his hair, every flex as his body responded to the tepid storm.

Coming full circle around the table, shifting from toe to toe and handhold to handhold, Astarelle sensed a clear path to him, or where he had been when her whispering sand was obstructed. She planted both feet, locked onto his direction with her blank face, and lunged. The sand rushed with her, giving a forceful push as she reached forward and beckoned to the staff.

[Leoric]

Leoric was starting to enjoy himself, first the all he could drink booze, then a little bar brawl that he figured would be over shortly. His opponent made her move, using all the dust he had just made airborne.

"I don't dance, similarly to how you don't drink" he smirked as he felt the staff in his hand tug forwards. The lord of the bottle, as she so eloquently put it, surmised the staff was trying to go towards his opponent shrouded in the sand. At that moment many ways to attack came into mind, yet as the thick sand/dust mixture kept getting thicker, he figured it meant getting closer as well. Leoric lowered his grip on the staff and pulled it back behind his head, prepared to swing it like a club.

The momentum from pulling the staff back had thrown the drunken man off balance as he spun in place. Without losing the opportunity given to him, he flexed his arm muscles and swung into his swing? Hoping that the stick would connect with his opponents face and send her careening clear across the room, Leoric would then straddle her and proceed to throw punch after punch into her face until she begged for mercy or passed out.

[Roht Mirage]

With her breath stagnant under the mask (it was porous enough for shallow breathes, but not for the panicked, drunken kind) she gulped even more air. Let go! she willed as her staff was held from her. It's position was barely discernible... high, slanted, ready; just as she held it before knocking some fool's head for the parapets.

Bury me!

She might have had enough time to duck, but she didn't. She would not dodge her own weapon and leave it in the hands of that booze-brained bastard one second longer than necessary. In a move that betrayed just how intoxicated she also was, she turned her charge into a leap and caught the end of the staff on her shoulder. Her hands wrapped around it, one strongly, the other limply as pain blasted down her left side. Her feet slide on the floor, working with the traction that her scattered sand provided, and she braced herself to a stop as she glowered at him through the slits.

Immediately, three events took place. First, the storm staggered to a halt. The sand remained airborne, nothing more than an irritant, and the dust drifted lazily down as if tired from the windy adventure. Second, a sparkling line of crystal blue jumped from the neck of her blouse and over Leoric's head like the tear trail of an invisible pixie. Third -and this was the part that turned the anguished grimace under her mask into a horrible grin- the sand hidden in the pores of the reed staff sprang to life. Two thin tendrils of burnt-gold burst from spots near each of his wrists, skimmed a hair's width over his flesh, and reconnected with the staff to form cuffs -bladed cuffs- slanted so that any attempt to quickly escape would skin the backs of his hands to bone and knuckles.

Astarelle suddenly dropped to the floor. Her rump struck first, painfully vibrating her bruised torso, then the end of the staff thunked to the floorboards. A bulb of sand emerged from the reed, delving into the cracks of the floor and hardening to lock it in place; the staff now one with the weathered wood. Then, Astarelle was gone. Where she had once been, there was only a rapidly-fading outline of blue like an image burnt into the eye.

At the same moment, the flecks of sapphire coalesced into a single point behind Leoric's shoulders. It was a small, sparkling seed... that heralded the instantaneous reappearance of the masked woman. Her legs wrapped around his waist, her breasts crushed to his back, and her right arm came up and over his own. The elbow, vice-like, clamped down on his shoulder as she took his hair in one violent handful. With abdominals quaking, Astarelle reared back. A whole swathe of sand drifting around her collapsed onto the brow of the mask, forming a row of three-inch spikes like the plated frill of a prehistoric beast. She let out a scream that reverberated diabolically from the mask, then snapped her head forward and down to bury the ridge of spikes into the left side of his neck.

[Leoric]

Everything seemed to happen at a blurring speed. Leoric's intoxicated brain couldn't keep up. One moment the staff connected with his opponent, it is then pulled down towards the ground and some sand thing had encased his hand. any attempt at moving caused sharp pains to run through his arm. Then, all of a sudden, there she was on his back. He instinctively pulled his right arm back as he let go of the staff, tearing his hand apart. At the last second he realized he just wasn't fast enough, her spiky forehead perforated his neck and he dropped to the ground in agony.

“Dammit!” He coughed as the blood began to pour out of his neck holes “And here all I was going to do if I won... was put you in a bed upstairs … with a note, making you think we did something...” He hacked and cough as he started to get cold. “I guess, this is what death feel's like” as he heard his opponent move he knew he couldn’t move to react or counter, he was done for, instead he simply uttered a few very weak words.

“Care for one last drink? My pretty lady.” In all his bar fights, in any of his fights for that matter. He had never been so close to death. His match with Zack blaze had ended in a double knock out, neither of them close to death. His master, had never taught him what being close to death felt like. The sensation actually scared Leoric, for the first time in his life he didn’t have a snarky comeback, or one liner as he was defeated. Instead tears began to well up in his eyes as he feared for what was to come.

[Roht Mirage]

Astarelle had slipped off his back after the impact, washed down in the first burbles of blood like an insect with wings damp. The crimson screen dripped down the mask, found the slits, and forced her to close her eyes. Her sand, airborne but still, told her little of his movement. Wheezing, incapacitated, she skittered back on elbows and heels until her aching skull bumped against a table leg.

“Liar,” she hissed in the confines of the mask, “You were going to... take what all men want.” She tried to say it with venom, but his wet whisper of death made the hostility run from her. It's over? The white mask melted from her face, taking his blood with it. Though, some did stick in her hair, glistening darkly.

Warily, Astarelle circled him. She kept her body low, but only because it felt so heavy with inebriation, exhaustion, and the vengeful return of pains that resented being ignored. Skittering through the dust and sand, smelling the bitter scent of blood, she came to the end of the staff that was locked to the floor. With eyes wide, she looked at his neck. Blood spurted from the holes at each ragged breath. His eyes leaked, empty of bravado, and clearly emptying of life.

She couldn't believe that his intentions were as benign as he claimed. Not after he had struck her from behind. Not after he had pressed the attack so hard. He would have to be a fool with not a stitch of foresight.

Astarelle felt the vodka flop about in her stomach.

“You're a blasted idiot, you know that?” she spat angrily as she reached for her staff. The sand retracted into its core, releasing the floorboards and his hand that he had not filleted through the cuffs. Instantly, he fell face first into the blood that pooled on the floor. It couldn't drain way between the boards as quickly as he was replacing it.

A weak bubbling announced that his nose was crunched under the tide, and Astarelle instinctively dropped her staff to tilt him over. His head came to rest on her lap. The horrible wound soaked her thighs. “Idiot. Booze-sucking idiot,” she rambled as she looked at his slackening face. It was painted in red as solidly as if he was now the one wearing a mask.

Of course, his last request would be a drink.

With one red hand, she reached into her blouse for the sapphire pendant. The sickly warmth of blood ran down between her breasts, pooling in the valley of the corset. She bit her lip painfully, forcing herself to concentrate on the gem particles in the pendant, and sent them toward the bar. In a moment -one of so few remaining for the fool- the bottle of vodka, nearly empty, flickered to her hand.

Leoric weakly raised his right hand -the bloody mess that remained of a hand- on the strength of habit alone. Astarelle huffed and moved the bottle to his lips herself. Yet, when she tilted it for him to take the last dregs, he didn't swallow. The light went from his eyes as if she had poured water on guttering coals. Vodka sloshed from the corner of his mouth. She tilted the bottle away, clanking its bottom on the painted floor. “This is real,” she told herself after a long time staring at him, and him staring at her... unblinking. “I'm a murderer.” Part of her begged for her legs to move, to go find an Ai'Brone to perform some sort of miracle. But, even they had their limits, and Corone, blood-lavishing place that it was, had laws. Bury me. Astarelle lifted the bottle to her mouth. She could taste his blood on her lips, her tongue. Then, the burn scoured it away.

The heavy doors creaked behind her, and the smooth, shuffling footfalls of multiple bodies moved into the pub. The authorities. Astarelle squeezed her eyes shut, wringing out tears, and resolutely finished the bottle.

“Astarelle Set'Roh?” said a kindly yet cautious voice.

“Hoak?” she choked out. The last drops of vodka rolled down her chin as the bottle clattered to the floor beside her and rolled. She dizzily turned her head, grey eyes wide and uncomprehending. “Hoak?” she asked again, “What are you... What?”

Among the cluster of approaching Ai'Brone, only Hoak had his hood down. The weathered lines of his face were heavy with apology. “I told them it was too cruel. But, they insisted. Real drama for the spectators. They didn't know how hard you took your first match here.” A half-dozen hoods swayed toward him, hiding either anger or amusement.

Astarelle looked between the forest of their robes and out the open door. The polished stone of the Citadel, and another heavy door on the opposite wall, were all that could be seen. Her head tilted to the side as if her mind literally had broken in two with one chunk larger and weighting down the right side of her skull. “I entered from a street... in the city.”

One of the dark hoods chuckled. “It's not a trick we perform often, or for just anyone.” Astarelle blinked. “Welcome to the Magus.”

She looked down at Leoric's dead expression, and she swore she could hear his spirit laughing smugly, luxuriating in the feel of her lap. “Son of a horker!” she cursed as she dumped him unceremoniously to the ground. The Ai'Brone were just far enough away to not catch him before his head slapped -satisfyingly- onto the bloody boards.

Instantly, she was on her feet, or trying to. Hoak's iron grip caught her and helped her stand. She looked him in the face, but his eyes were elusive and ashamed. “You...” she slurred. He looked away with a grimace. I wanted to recreate that night before the Cell. Bury me, did I ever. She expanded the list in her head. More than a few minutes; check. More than one drink, and shared with the most uncouth kind of person; check. A bar brawl; check and then some. Only one omen was unfulfilled. “Fuck it,” the former priestess muttered as she gripped the folds of Hoak's robe and towed her face to his.

~The sound of Leoric's body -again- hitting the floor.
A cluster of sharp, astonished intakes of breath.
The wet resonance of a passionate, relieved, too-long kiss.~

Astarelle pulled her mouth back from Hoak's, marking him with vodka and blood that ran down the edge of his lips as he stared, jaw dropping. She playfully pushed away from him, then wobbled and grabbed his arm. “Don't just stare, boys. You've got to sober me up for round two.”

[Max Dirks]

Interesting battle. Since you two are classified as veterans, my commentary will be limited. Overall, I feel Roht Mirage had a better handle over the writing aspects of the rubric whereas Leoric dominated the RP elements. I'll be combining my comments. RM refers to Roht Mirage and LC refers to Leoric.

	Roht Mirage	Leoric	Notes
Story	6	5	RM: Your twist conclusion earned you an extra point here.
Setting	6	5
Pacing	5	6	RM: Your overuse of elipses hurt you here. Also, the flashback to the boy's home seemed forced. You hurt yourself by turning away from this storyline.
Communication	5	4
Action	4	5	LC: You did a better job of establishing and playing your character drunk. Moreover, you maintained him as such whereas RM had a few posts where Astrella did not seem affected at all by the alcohol. Also, towards the climax of the battle, both of your characters' actions became somewhat convoluted. It became unclear of what was actually happening without several slow re-reads.
Persona	5	5
Mechanics	5	5	RM: Your overuse of elispes had the same affect as excessive comma usage in your writing: run-on sentences. For example, this line, "One boy -indiscernible from the others due to their time-wrought uniform of matted hair and long-ago-laundered clothes- was atop the awkwardly pious tower, his hands against the window that they all so yearned for..." required multiple rereads to discern your intent. Simply adding a connection word, like "who" can clean that up. Also, try to avoid ending sentences with prepositions. LC: You had some issues with run-ons as well, but not to the extent of RM. Also, read through your post before submitting it (even if you're using a word processor). I noted far too many grammar, capitalization, and spelling errors for my liking. For example, in your first post you didn't capitalize two sentences in a row! You're better than that.
Clarity	5	5
Technique	7	5	RM: Though sometimes unnatural, the breaks in your writing gave it a flair that made it enjoyable to read (and reread when I misunderstood the meaning of what you wrote). When you are in a grove, your writing flows. As an advanced writer, I encourage you to start adding simile, metaphor and foreshadow to your writing. LC: I can't tell you how many times you repeated the same actions between dialogue. "Leoric smirked" was your favorite. I used to have the same issue. Overusage of certain terms (in general writing) and actions (in stories) makes the writing sound repetitive. It makes you seem less creative that you likely are. Brevity is a good cure here. Say only what you need to say and don't worry about filler.
Wildcard	5	5
Total	53/100	50/100

Roht Mirage advances to Round Two!
Leoric is very much alive in the Loser's Bracket.

Roht Mirage earns 1750 EXP and 75 GP.
Leoric earns 525 EXP and 70 GP.

[Lye]

EXP & GP Added!