Round 1: Team Devil's Outcasts v Sons of Shadows

[Logan]

Round 1 pits Team Devil's Outcasts (Dissinger and Skie and Avery) versus Sons of Shadow (MattewKuch and Black Shadow), and will begin on Tuesday, March 15th at midnight EST.

[Skie and Avery]

This wasn’t the first time Skie had been behind bars. Even good girls break bad every once in a while, after all. This time, however, she put herself there and this time the doors weren’t locked. That was the important bit.

She and Seth had come itching for a fight. Alerar was quick to provide that these days. There were whispers of Lornius Corporation from Corone sniffing around the capitol, but to what end she didn’t know. With a prison machine came their flunkies. Hardened men who were used to dispensing corporal punishment now on a payroll were dangerous men. After all, how do you jail a warden?

It was perfect, Seth had said. They’d only have to breathe aggressively in someone’s direction to start a fight. Then, her training would begin. There was magic somewhere in her veins, and it was time to bleed it out.

The swordswoman rubbed at her eyes as she sat on the roof. Somewhere below, Seth would likely still be stalking down the hall of the prison. It was a small compound at the edge of the prairie. Surely Lornius would be interested in sniffing out what was already built, they reasoned. When they saw the fencing, topped with loose loops of barbed wire, they felt like it was the right place to wait.

The gates had been rusted, but luckily some past storm had blown them down and aside. Skie shuddered at the thought of cutting herself on the red, flaking metal. It screamed as it swayed in the wind, a warning of what pain the rusted iron poised to inflict. The yard was overgrown, full of brambles huddled together in the tall grass. The small stone building itself was still solid after years and when they explored they’d found the interior to be in relatively good condition. The well had run dry, and none of the water would pump. Here and there patches of the roof had been damaged, discoloring the walls and bubbling the wallpaper.

It was the same under the windows in the cells, with stone stained by the elements. When Skie had swept through, looking for the access to the roof, she’d found scribbling on the cell walls. Mostly they counted the days. Sometimes they were pornographic, including the scratched sketch of a Raiaeran with impossible anatomy that made her chortle for a moment before she moved on. Sometimes they were threats, and names.

The overall dismal feel of the prison was lessened when she had stepped up there, finding a place where she could see the road they’d come from and sweep her gaze along the fencing. It was cheerful and sunny today, early enough in the morning that the warm Alerian sun hadn’t started to bake the air. The humidity from the night and the warm breeze blowing in from the south made it lovely. It was a day she’d have spent exploring more of Ettermire and enjoying her new home if the hex mage hadn’t insisted they come out.

Now, the peeping of quail chicks in the brush disrupting the quiet of the breezy morning and the warmth of spring bidding her to relax, she turned her thoughts to Seth. He needed her and didn’t need her at the same time, which was a strange feeling. He saw her as an important pawn, but still as disposable as the rest. Mostly it hurt, but it was nothing compared to the pain she saw in him.

His plan of antagonizing the Lornius was fitting, she thought. They were both trapped in prisons they needed escaping. With any luck, she’d save them both.

Covering her forehead with a hand so that she could shade her blue eyes from the sun, she watched the road. Had she seen something there, or was it a trick of the humidity, of the dew drying up and shimmering along the horizon? Her lips pursed as she waited and stared at the place where she thought she’d seen something more than the dancing mirage, ready to whistle and alert the demon below.

[Dissinger]

In life there were two constants. Order was the calm certainty of action. It offered a structured way to live one's life and only asked for discipline and obedience in return. One could argue that order was what everything strives towards. That civilization was the product of nature’s desire to instill perfect order. Order provided for those who huddled under its arms, and protected those too weak to protect themselves. Order, simply put, was the animal instinct of nurturing. Order was a perfect system, that was until it met its mortal enemy;

Chaos.

Chaos was the force of change, the destroyer of ways. It consumed all in its path, tossing aside perfect Order to unleash itself upon the world. The weak perished so the strong survived in Chaos' wake, and none were ever the same. Chaos is the force of evolution. Without Chaos, Order would stagnate and wither. Without Chaos, eventually Order would destroy all within its grasp. Chaos was necessary, to challenge the status quo, while forcing a stronger whole in the process.

Seth Dahlios, the Lavinian Hex Magi, renowned demon, was in need of more Chaos in his life.

His daughter stripped from him and held hostage. His lover shunning him, Order had solidified his life into making him a villain unable to strike at his antagonists. Order would see him die, at the command of a Demagogue that would seek to use him as their perfect killer. If he let Order have its way, if he maintained the path he tread, he would be dead and his daughter would be turned into a replacement for him. So, he threw the ordered structure of his life, the peaceful quiet life he had fought so hard to maintain, and gave into the chaos within.

It’s easy to say you turn your back on the thought of ever living a normal life. The thought that you would go out, do a few things for someone, get paid, and come home to a woman who loves you for your faults. See the children you helped bring into the world, and realize that there is something bigger than you in the world, and that you are but a cog in the machine. It was comfort, it was structure, it was Order.

The truth was, Chaos was hard, destroying your own life for the chance at saving another was impossible. Changing the world around you was a monumental task. One that would defy the gods themselves. Seth Dahlios was seeking to drive the world into utter chaos, and in doing so, perhaps the world would be forced to change. He needed to become more public, be visible when he sowed chaos and utter destruction. It was time to force the game into its final moves, and he hoped he could corner the bitch that had forced these changes in him.

Victory would be sweet once he bled that bitch on his blades.

A leather clad gauntlet squealed in protest as the clenched fist tightened. Anger was his new mistress, a lover of passion that demanded he commit himself wholly unto it. He ignored the dull gray walls meant to stifle, crush, and destroy the souls of those found within. He walked the hallways, a wistful hand touching each bar, passing along the walls. He wasn't even paying attention to where he was going, the building was a rather straight forward prison. There were no secrets to find, as if the architect was rushing and filled in the most cliché blueprint for a prison possible. The only remotely interesting thing within the prison was its access to the roof, and even that was a mere practicality.

It was time to introduce a new piece onto the board, and in doing so sow a little more chaos into the system. Faelynn had failed in her ability to step onto the board and matter, hiding in the shadows are refusing to come out. He had not seen his last apprentice in some time, though if truth were told he was happy about that. Faelynn was too easy to neutralize. She had a family, and friends, people she cared about. No, Faelynn was a liability in all honesty, and he was happy to see she took the advice to never get caught seriously. If she did return to the board as a piece, she would be a surprise. One more piece of chaos to sow. Now he needed a knight. Stronger than the pawn that was Faelynn, more flexible, but still not the king, not the penultimate piece.

His thoughts turned to Skie and the apprenticeship he had put her through so far. It was colder, rougher, harder on the apprentice for sure. Seth had not invested as much energy in pushing Skie to fully awaken her magic, both a blessing and a curse. That was why they were here, one more incident for her to understand how to grasp the magic that screamed within her veins. If Lornius had indeed come to Alerar, surely the companies would seek fights with the Lavinian Demon and his latest protégé. They’d be strong willed and able people that would cause no lack of stress on the duo, though it was more a warm up for Seth.

A predatory grin lit his face as he turned a corner, heading for the entrance of the prison proper, the torn and destroyed gates. He could feel his heart quicken with anticipation, the tell tale signs of adrenaline entering his veins when he stepped into the light. He wanted to fight, to let go, and perhaps to kill.

He was a Demon after all...

[Logan]

Sons of Shadow are disqualified for failing to post during the round.

Team Devil's Outcasts advance to the Semi-Finals! Good luck!