Ataraxis vs. Devin Argente

[Ther]

This match-up will last until 8 P.M. E.S.T. on 2/16/07. Remember, if you finish your battle early, I can score you early - and finishing early is a good, good thing always.

Best of luck!

[Ataraxis]

“I have the enforcer in my sights.”

The Bodkin spoke to his associate as he peered through the spyglass and down onto the rabble of Radasanth. His statement was conveyed with dark impassivity, reflecting the placidity of the starless night overhead. Lowering the scoping apparatus, he shot a glance to the robed personage behind him, a tacit associate he knew only under the alias of the Skein.

Whereas the Bodkin favoured the weightlessness of his simple attire, consisting of a simple leather jerkin, breeches and buskins, the Skein fancied looser fabrics and voluminous garbs, something that rather unnerved the Bodkin’s professionalism. Too showy, he often said. Still, collaboration with this man would provide many benefits, and what detriments came with this alliance seemed infinitesimal in comparison. ‘Besides, what is a sorcerer without his robes?’ the assassin thought to himself in jest.

“The answer to that, my friend, is a particularly deadly nudist.” The Bodkin failed to repress a shudder, having been wryly reminded just why the Skein was such an invaluable asset. The wind picked, its blustery howl akin to the ruffle of banners billowing in a strong breeze, and shook the corrugated rooftop from which they surveyed the goings-on of the lineal streets down below. “Now that he has been found, how do you wish for us to proceed?” A rogue draft picked at his sagging sleeves, as well as anything else it could sway. A curl of white hair lapped at so dour a face, his thin eyes barren wells that stared down at the assassin with a cold and blatant disrespect.

“He needs to be approached, without rousing any suspicion,” The Bodkin replied imperturbably, uncaring for his partner’s theatrics; his cold composure had returned, congealing his countenance once more in a deadpan facade. The assassin spied the nearby crowds for something, someone that they could use for this purpose. His view was plagued with the feebleness of the too old and too young, all either too short, too skinny or too podgy to stick a knife in a stranger’s neck. On the other hand, those endowed with adequate strength, height and weaponry were simply too noticeable and would be hard-pressed to enter the enforcer’s perimeter without elbowing a grandmother or squashing an unmindful runt; they needed to proceed with subtlety, not to brew up a blasted brouhaha.

While the Bodkin scanned the streets from left to right, he riveted the lens onto the frail figure of a girl, black-haired and fair-skinned, all swaddled in a little white dress; his attention, however, was drawn to the blue-tinted sheen of the dirk that was bouncing with the sways of her waist. “Our gull has been sighted. Best thing is, she has her own weapon.” The Bodkin slid to the left to make room for his colleague, the spyglass still hefted high and steady so that it could be passed on to the sorcerer, lens still focused on the chosen target. Upon observation, a cursive slit cut across the Skein’s pallid face, contorting into a sickly smile that boasted whittled enamel, worn through the years by constant mistreatment.

“Leave the rest to me. Before this night is over, the Argente boy will be resting peacefully in the depths of the Niema River.”

:::::::::

What started as an innocuous amble through the boulevard of Radasanth had turned into a precarious ordeal for Lillian. On the way to the marketplace for late-night errands, the girl was seized with a gripping pain that pulsed strong in the back of her neck, and as the minutes wore on, the dolour spread like a pernicious disease. ‘Oh, this isn’t good,’ she squealed mentally, slamming her temples with both hands, a reckless action that brought no relief to the sudden headache. Lillian did not recall any particular overuse of her cognitive abilities and was fairly certain that she had not suffered any trauma recently. Why, then, had this megrim struck her like a bolt out of the blue?

Soon, the train of her thoughts was trailing haphazardly, and she could no longer make any sense of the situation. Voices called out, fading in and out of her ears in a warble of dissonant haze. The flows of people at her sides seemed to contract and dilate; sometimes as if making way for her as if she were a wounded on a stretcher, other times as if to smother her and crush her thinner than a pancake. Her mind grew heavy and her vision had become but a blur.‘What’s happening to me?’ There was the loom of darkness, a malignant cloud shaped like the wicked face of an old man; it had come to shadow her eyes, to silence her voice. Its whisper was dripping the venom of persuasion, telling her – no, ordering her to succumb, to let its will invade the fortress of her mind.

Suddenly, she felt her spirit burst alit and heard her voice boom out in an invigorated roar, shooing the oppressive obscurity away, stopping its dreadful onslaught. “No!”

:::::::::

The Skein was not pleased. For most of the process, he had managed to bypass her mental barriers with relative ease. Like the psyche of most humans, he could compare her cerebral mechanics to some sort of multi-layered dome, each hemispherical shell of varying thickness. Stronger wills had better chances of denying his takeover; this was precisely the reason for which he had not target the Argente heir directly. The Skein was unsure if the boy had erected defences of some sort, but he could see, or rather, sense that his brain was different, unconventional. Rather than taking a closer gander at his mental schematics, he would rather manipulate a weakling to dispatch the boy and have it over with. Oh, he had thought that it would be a done deal, until he jarred into a rather unsettling wall, of the allegorical kind. The recoil sent painful, outward ripples that projected him back on his behind and shook his own psychic barriers with a vengeance. “Cursed sow!” he snarled, rubbing a hand on the sore of his tender parts and the other on his injured forehead.

Perhaps for the first time in years, the assassin had grinned, taking the setback with surprising lightness, actually finding it quite hilarious. “Have you hit a stump, my friend?”

“Oh, to hell with you and your mockery.” The sorcerer dusted his robes industriously before straightening up. Beads of sweat broke onto his bristled eyebrows and his expression was deeply creased, as though onto the facial skin had been drawn an intricate map, all directions pointing to unabated wrath. “The gloves are coming off. I will pick at your brain with tongs no more. Do not be surprised if my nails dig into your grey matter!” The sorcerer shot his hands outwards and shut his eyes, his whole body quavering and cracking under the sheer tension of his focus. This night, the strings would be noosed and she would dance as his puppet of flesh and blood. No one denied the Skein.

:::::::::

Lillian was scuttling over the cobbled streets, breathing hard as she ran to and fro in search of help. “There’s a disembodied head trying to control my mind!” All she heard in return were chortles and amused comments, stating that if a cloven head had such powers, it would seek a body for itself, not another head. Not only were the puns horrible and these people deserved a long sojourn in hell for telling them, but none would take her seriously, as her mind was so fragmented by the previous attack that she could not put words to her thoughts without beseeming an escaped loon. In the throes of utter disarray, she fell to her knees. Holding her dismay in suppression, she gave a cursory look to her surroundings, noticing only then a tall specimen of a man, well-kempt and cleanly-clad with a white blouse and jacket of pure black that drooped to his knees. Looking up with a fair degree of embarrassment, she extended her plea once more. “Please, you have to help me! Someone’s trying to control– ”

What does it feel like when one’s head bursts into slivers of pink tissue and bloodied bone? Lillian would never know for certain, but she now had a fair account of what the closest thing felt like. As the last soupcon of her consciousness slinked away, trapped deep in the recesses of her psyche, she had seen the face of her oppressor, bare and unconcealed by the cumuli of smoke that had once misted its features. Its chapped lips split open, revealing the jagged teeth of a carnivore. It spoke. ‘You are a tough shell to crack, dear. Alas, in the end, the Skein is always victorious. Goodnight.’

:::::::::

‘Ah, fits like a glove.’ The Skein was now admiring his latest possession, taking an interested glimpse down to his distaff curvatures. Moving tentatively, he wobbled a bit and understood that he needed to acclimatize mind to body, much like a swimmer after a long break. A few twitches of the fingers and toes had passed unnoticed, but he could not risk any strange, deliberate motion that would seem unnatural to the enforcer afront him. In spite of everything, the Skein was curious, very curious about his newest acquisition; he had never taken over the body of a woman before. Inspecting himself, he took pride in his newly-acquired curves and slender silhouette; the old sorcerer could not help to let his mind wander, relishing in such a novel approach to wooing. ‘I must be a pioneer.’ It took him quite a bit of effort not to bring his thin, feminine fingers up to grope at his bosom, these assets that he felt were far more munificent than he was first led to believe. ‘This dress does no justice to the girl; it is incredibly misleading! Ah, but yes, this is not exactly the best time for... exploration. Business first, pleasure later – I have a man to kill.’

“Oh, hello.” Working the gears of his knowledge, the Skein sought for a sentence, a line that would expose an opening in the enforcer. “Dear lords, I am oh-so drunk! Whatever will I do?” He did his best to sway from side to side and plastered a dimwitted smile across his rosy lips, faking a hiccup now and then; it was clearly obvious that acting was not the sorcerer’s bailiwick, that he might just not be able to play a woman to save his life – and quite literally at that.

[Devin Argente]

"Come on, Mino," Devin exclaimed incredulously, his arms eaglespread as if to embrace a giant boulder. He did not know whether to be angry or amused with the rat-like frame in front of him, the man his father had once appointed Head of Intelligence. The man that knew every corner of Radasanth, the secrets of every man, every woman walking its spiderwebbed pathways. The man who could effortlessly twist lie into truth and back again. Time and time again, Mino had aided the Argente's endeavours on their way to triumph, and in the back of his mind, Devin knew that he should be believing the man on his word. But what the spy had just revealed was just too inconceivable to be true. Absurd. His arms fell back to the sides of his tenuous torso. He remained silent as he looked into Mino's skeletal face. Emotionless orbs of dark blue clashed with his, eyes as cold as the small shelter they had gathered in.

"I'm disappointed, Argente," Mino whispered haughtily as he ran a bony finger through carefully combed-back, black hair. He always whispered; not a single time had Devin ever heard him speak at normal volume. "No leader should wave away a warning of assassination, especially when it comes from the most reliable source available. Me." The admonishing words were amplified by an aberrant breeze that found its way through the doorless entrance. The lamp hanging loosely from the ceiling shuddered left and right, its light growing pale and weak. Mino left without another word, his dark robes bellowing behind him as he merged with the first shade he could find - not difficult during a nighttime such as this, when even the stars concealed themselves behind an omnipresent, unseen nebula of darkness.

Devin hoped that the spy would not be overly offended. It would be dangerous to make someone so deeply involved with the family his enemy. On the other hand, Mino could have expected Devin's skeptical reaction when all he brought were words without proof. And what words! The Argente had listened less and less as Mino's retinue of revelations had moved forward. Entire corporations out for his life? Sure, he'd made many enemies in the past, but none that warranted a witch hunt of such scale. And a witch hunt it was. According to Mino, his hunters bore not merely knives and poison, but also magical talents; mentalists that could destroy the feebleminded with a nip of their fingers. Why, for death's sake, why? He silently cursed Mino, knowing that the remainder of the night would most likely be filled with paranoia and worry, all due to that spy's adamant insistence that something or someone wanted him dead.

He left the overgrown alcove, trading the void of slate stone for the bustle of the Radasanthian nocturne. He inhaled deeply, the fresh air lifting his spirit as he proceeded to stroll towards the busier parts of town. Shadow blinked in the corner of his eye, a shiver jolted up his spine. Like lightning, he turned around and with a ringing sound, a broad blade of silvery steel shot out of a sleeve of his black jacket. He was completely focused, and so was the cat that quickly leaped away from his sudden movements with an indignant yawp. Muttering expletives to drive away the shame that wailed through his pale cheeks, he quickly sheathed the katar and turned around. For a moment, he pondered whether he should request two guards to accompany him. Only to ensure that he would enjoy his night off, of course. He wasn't scared. He shivered.

And with that, show Mino that he was right all along? No way.

In an attempt to cover his vexation with indifference, he shrugged and continued on his way to the city center. That he subconsciously caressed the mechanism of his hidden weapons naturally had nothing to do with prior events. Bursts of wind now came in rhytmic patterns, sending his unkept auburn hair every which way, blasting dust into his eyes and sand to spoil the black pants he'd newly donned mere hours before. His repressed paranoia turned any passersby into vengeful spirits, every gleam of glass or light a dagger to his heart. Constructions gradually grew in size, three stories, four stories, their roofs and shades clawing over his quickening footsteps. Beads of sweat began to run down Devin's forehead, and he looked over his shoulder far too many times. No enemies in sight, and yet he felt like he was continuously being watched.

May you and your wretched stories be damned, Mino, damned!

A terrified shriek ripped his thoughts away from his own problems. Another pulled them into the tormented world of a ghastly girl. She ran randomly over the cobblestones, her inky hair frantically trying to keep up as she turned to different onlookers, her brabbling sparsely interspersed with utterings of darkest fear and incoherent requests for help. People eyed each other strangely, some laughing, some seeming slightly concerned but in no way prepared to take action. Devin closed his eyelids while he repeated a simple mantra: "Don't come this way. Please, don't come this way. Don't come this way. Please, don't come this way."

Only moments after, he opened his eyes and found the feminine psychosis kneeled in front of him, eerie sapphire puncturing a way through his mind, a fleeting request for help, more sincere than Devin had ever witnessed. His weary thoughts sighed collectively, although nothing was to be read off his face, his features expressionless as though on the job. But right as he bent down to indulge the fearful girl, she stood upright, and every glimpse of terror had faded from her delicate face. The reversal was so sudden and unexpected that Devin could not help but take a step backwards, furrowing his brows in confusion. Mino's words still sauntered through him, jeering, taunting. Nonsense. This had nothing to do with assassination. But Devin had to admit that this entire situation was abnormal and worrisome in itself. Especially when the girl, after a moment of unbefitting stillness, started stumbling around, badly mimicing a drunk. It caused most spectators to turn around and leave Devin to deal with her.

Something's incredibly not right here...

Fear is not an emotion easily simulated. As an enforcer, he'd dealt with the feeling too many times to be fooled by any bluff concerning it. And when she'd sat there, hopeless, stretching out a hand towards him in a plea of despair, it had not been a pretense; this he knew for sure. The twitching eyebrows, unsteady eyes, trembling hands. Unmistakable. How could she so suddenly have changed? Devin eyed her with suspicion as the lean girl continued her laughable performance. Her white gown was no longer pristine, now that she'd been on the ground. If he took Mino's words into consideration, Devin knew he should say nothing, turn around, and leave the anomaly be. But a flame of rebellion roared inside his chest, driving his rationale away. To hell with Mino. He would find out what was wrong with this girl, and doing so, he would prove the spy's admonitions entirely ineffectual. But he could not grow any wiser here on the street.

"Follow me, I've got a stash of sober-up potions nearby," he spoke amiably, knowing very well that she did not need any. Instantly, he turned his back to her, to lead her away from the boulevard and into a more private environment, where they could talk.

[Ataraxis]

“This is the worst stakeout in years,” jeered the Bodkin as his thickset fingers skimmed the bossed bareness of his skull, a youthful habit that had endured the attrition of time, though the same could not be said of his once plentiful mane. It was such a pain to witness his associate’s antics that the assassin felt as if he were a particularly skittish urchin, sat down alone amongst myriads of haughty snubs donned in blah panoplies of laughable tailcoats and flabby farthingales, coerced into a torturous viewing of the latest rendition of yet another trite tragedy; the only distinctions were that he was instead about to witness a most pathetic train wreck on his partner’s part, and that he would sit through it without the luxury of any plump upholstery. “There are a thousand flat and shingle roofs to pick from in this city, and he had to pick the only one that was so ruffled that the ridges actually ride up my hind rack. Better vantage point, he says… blasted idiot.” Contrary to common belief, the proletarians of the underworld were not unscrupulous monsters, numbed from the coils of the mortal soul, the weaknesses of the living body, the soreness in one’s tender parts.

“The bait has hooked,” the assassin spoke absently, drawn forth as he clutched the spyglass with both hands. Through the vitreous scope, he had seen the Argente boy trail off with his faux-drunk of a partner; the twosome was slinking from the bustling thoroughfare of Radasanth, weaving hurriedly through a bobbing sea of heads. Now that was queer and unexpected. ‘Perhaps a bit too convenient?’ the Bodkin pondered the Argente boy’s laxity, his opinions on the matter rather disparate: was the enforcer really such an oblivious dullard, incapable of differentiating the symptoms of inebriation from the grotesqueries of a clown by interim, or did they have the wrong man? Nagging at the back of his head, however, was a third, much less amusing conjecture. ‘As much as I loathe saying this, if he did see through the subterfuge, then I will have to– ”

He has not, called the wind, an ominous whisper that carried over the sonant ruckus of the streets. Scurrying every which way were his furtive optics, glints of tourmaline under the nebulous shroud of darkness that swathed the city; but alas, they had caught onto nothing that was not already there. The corrugated housetop was as it had always been, in situ, occupied only by the hunched shell of the Skein and himself. It was then that the skies howled a downward gust, carrying the admonishments of a stentorian voice; this time, though, he had recognized the condescension ubiquitous in the cerebralist’s speech. Your help is not needed; I have a plan. Now hush, you are ruining my concentration.

“Great chap,” the Bodkin mouthed under his breath, repressing an expletive in favor of a threat, and angled his glare at the presence beside him, a hollowed skin that beseemed a monk in transcendental meditation. “What a pity if his body was somehow… misplaced.”

:::::::::

Contending hard with the Argente’s pace, The Skein fell into the man’s strides as best he could with the tiny steps of his feminine feet. ‘Lissome little beauties they are, but how accursedly short!’ The mad scissoring of his legs notwithstanding, there was worthy cause for celebration; that their target had been so compliant, that he had pulled the wool over the enforcer’s eyes so successfully had been a triumph unto itself, and already had his lips blossomed with a gleeful malice, nigh on watering at the notion of getting his due in a plump pouch chock-full of those twinkling, golden opiates. All that stood in his way was the enforcer’s bony atlas, and the Skein would make a point of wedging his dirk dead in it.

The mentalist had laughed at the mere concept of those abominable concoctions mentioned by the Argente, utterly appalled at the thought that one would willingly mitigate a hard-earned drunken stupor. ‘Yet another folly wrought by those abstemious-minded pricks.’ More than a simple game or a meager sport, more than a night’s occasion to summon one’s inner machismo, drinking was an art in and of itself, where only veritable walls of testosterone outshone the lowly ragtag of this society’s wimps, all of whom were but frail and sorry excuses for men. These so-called potions were but the silly gimmicks of raving grandmothers, the Skein told himself: the only real way of dealing with the mists of the morn was with another fiery spoonful of that blessed Lavininan Ale. ‘In fact, I’ll make a note of it and go scull one over the eight right after this mission and inebriate myself – for real, this time.’ Dangling at his sides, his spindly fingers itched for the cold haft of the knife.

The walk through the cobbled avenue had grown tedious and, breathless as he was, the Skein had no choice but to make his mind. The Skein was having second thoughts pertaining to setting the plan into motion, and had tergiversated during their nocturnal amble, pressured by the fleeting shades of people, of observers, of witnesses… Oh, the plan was a machination of pure genius, but what it entailed would injure him deeply and cause more pain than if he had his bones hewed or his flesh diced. Bruises, gashes, fractures healed; but when a man’s pride is wounded, it can never wholly mend. Lilywhite fingers were now closed into struggling fists, the perfect paleness of his womanly visage now creased with quailing ridges and the carnelian of his lips pulled so taught by his sinking teeth that they threatened to draw crimson. ‘Oh, golden mother, grant me the will to go on as I seek refuge in the cold of your wealthy bosom,’ he sang with the same religious zeal a churchman would give his psalmodies.

“I feel terribly strange.” The sensuous whisper was a soft dulcet that trickled down the ears, a blend of midsummer rosy and the sweet morning dew, with a hint of dark, mellifluous honey. The cerebralist had stressed the wrong words and shadowed all the rest, but even so, the inherent melody that spieled within this woman’s chest had sent a welcome cold to creep along his back, a brisk refreshment to his year-hardened soul. His act was perhaps subpar to that of a dribbling madman, but this host was home to many a strange thing, other than his intrusive psyche. She was unnaturally gifted, be it her comely shapes, seemly face or mysterious talents, of which he had discovered but one of many. ‘What a songstress she would make!’ he exclaimed with awe, his words all genuine and devoid of their past innuendos. The daze was broken when he picked up his wits, the grin upon his borrowed countenance a vague reflection of his knife-slit smiles. This unexpected gift, he would use this to his advantage. “It is so hard to breathe, with all this… heat.” Banal. Cliché. Unnatural. Seductive nonetheless.

With a quick forward lunge he latched at the enforcer’s arm, and with a gentle pull he drew him close. Giving playful tugs at his cuffs, the possessed girl inched the boy up a blind alley adjacent to the curb upon which they had roved, cluttered with broken sundries and a variety of trumperies from wall to wall, benighted save for the filmy lights from the open street. With the down of his hands, the Skein grazed the Argente’s cheek, brushing a finger down the curve of his face, the valleys of his throat, only to settle a palm upon the firm tracts of his bloused chest, the index drawing tickling eddies in the cusp of his pectorals. “Can you help me? I do not think I can wait any longer for a potion… is there nothing you can… administer, right here…” The Skein’s loaned guts were tied in a knot, in utter revulsion to this entirely contra-nature conduct. Only one thought could soothe his alerted masculinity: what it would feel like to be there, up front and against that bricked wall, in the Argente’s very stead. Taking his courage with both hands, the Skein laced the boy’s neck with one willowy arm and pulled himself on the tip of his toes, releasing a sibilant susurration to echo in the canals of the enforcer’s ears. “Right… now?”

As he moved in for the kiss of death, the glass handle of his dirk made its way into his free hand. Jerking at the wrist, he brought it to bear and slashed upwards to draw a bluish arc, which would cut across the enforcer’s unprotected neck. ‘Farewell, boy. Take pride in the fact that I will henceforth take unholy amounts of showers, just because of you.’

[Devin Argente]

Devin felt rather foolish as he trudged ahead, aimlessly. He had not the remotest idea of where he could take the strange woman. There were few trusted safe houses nearby, and he did not wish to take her back to the alcove where he'd met with Mino. Men with shady business never visit the same shady hideout twice; a simple rule of thumb, so ingrained in the enforcer's mind that he unconsciously abode by it. He noticed that they were steadily leaving the busier parts of town behind them. Townsfolk still passed by in jubilant groups, with brief intervals of solitude that grew greater and greater as the two progressed towards more restful quarters. He looked over his shoulder. The pale lady was still in compliant pursuit, silent as stone, jagged sapphires puncturing into his back as though trying to impale it. Questions itched inside his head. First full of fear, then drunk, now focused? Intent, even? He sighed inaudibly. It would have to wait.

Her infiuriating tranquillity became more and more reflected in their surroundings as time crawled on. Devin did not speak his mind, but he grew rather bothered as to why a perfectly sober girl, who had yet to see her twentieth spring, was following a thug like him into the most forlorn of Radasanth’s corners. He felt that if he wished, he could easily overwhelm her and leave her penniless, with no witnesses save for those few passersby that crossed their path every odd minute or so. The gleam of sharp metal at the woman’s side had not escaped his eyes, but she was of such small stature that even if trained in its use, Devin was confident that he would have proved victorious, had they wound up in a struggle. A fresh breeze dawdled over his oblique features. It was not colder than any other, and Devin was surprised to find that his body was trembling.

The Argente was not at ease, and the saccharine murmur that suddenly writhed into his ears did little to renounce the tension. He turned around to face the girl as she continued to wrap her words around him. She presented herself in so blatant a way that Devin would have thought only men capable of dreaming up the sugar-coated performance she was delivering. In worried stillness, he added ‘lust’ to the ever expanding enumeration of the phases his female companion went through. Again, the enforcer sensed that air of theatre about her behaviour. She tailored those enticing whispers without blushing, without any motion of sensual fancy. A fish leaping out of the water, craving to fly, to do what it was not made for.

Yet as she gracefully wrapped her spiny fingers around his arm, he – to his shame – had to admit that she was becoming progressively more comfortable in her role, and that her lure was not leaving him unaffected. Blank waves of primal masculinity stopped him from pulling his arm away, allowed her to expand on her initiative. Mesmerizing orbs of sapphire locked shut his rationale as she leaned against his chest, slowly pushing him against a wall in an alley that lay off the main road. Her fingers creeped along his torso, and she spoke once more, a predator seducing a prey that did not hear her whispers, yet knew full well what meaning they bore. He shivered. He knew that this was wrong. He did not know this nymph, her motives, but he could not escape her spell. Her pale lips drew closer to his ear as one of her arms embraced his neck, another noose added to the mental gallow that blocked the enforcer’s every motion. Her nose drew very close to his. He could smell her hair, see every eyelash encompassing her eerie, hypnotizing eyes. His body wanted to hold her close; his mind cried out for interruption, from anywhere, from anyone.

Emerald light crashed through the sapphire haze holding him in place. Black turned to auburn, pale to tan as the image was released from the pits of Devin’s memory. Love of my life. Anzala. Her smile that echoed within his thoughts, however faint, brightened up the alley. He regained freedom of thought, and with it, the power to concentrate. Shadow and light, black and white – all faded. Shades of gray remained. As he entered the plain of neutrality, he saw the mathematical properties of each surrounding object, and his gaze was pulled towards the monstrosity that held him firmly in its tentacles. Its core was entirely inhuman; the girl did not seem to be living, at all. Her properties were defined by an outside force. An outside force that now focused its strength in an upward motion from the girl’s free hand, out of the Argente’s earthly sight.

“No!” he growled as he wildly swung his left arm in the weapon’s general direction. Pain flashed across his face as it left a deep gash an inch below his elbow. Blood poured from the wound as he jumped away, deeper into the alley, staggering to keep balance. He turned around to face the assassin. His arm stung, and his hand slowly grew numb from the bloodloss, but he was alive. The fingers of his unharmed arm instantly unified into a fist, pulling the wooden handle that lay hidden inside the sleeves of his jacket. A silvery blade, broader than a shortsword, but not longer, slid out to cover the back of his clenched hand.

He was in no condition to attack, considering his injured arm, and so he simply stood at the ready, posing a hoarse query that would seem strange to any onlooker, but not to those who knew what was happening inside the bladewielding girl in front of him. “What are you?!”

[Ataraxis]

With words spun from the dark fantasies of the obscene, he had lured a prey into the tangle of his skein. It was moist with a musical passion, that lustful summons dreamt only in the wildest of reveries, and it dripped with a sensuality that wound the tousled twine around the spellbound quarry, around the feebleness of its masculine mentality, around the russet dross that coated its enraptured eyes. What snared it further were the wonders of her flesh, fairer than snow yet ablaze with the warmth of a summer day, stroking its strong waist with a generous thigh, embracing its slender neck with the noose of her supple arms as sultry lips yawned a heart-melting moan in search for their slit-like kindred. Underneath this façade of innocence churned the wicked allure of a succubus in all her lascivious glory. The perfect web, the perfect trap had been weaved, for no man could escape its beguiling meshes; the Argente was practically eating out of his stolen palms, and with them, he could so easily throttle the man to a breathless stop.

A whisk of wind, the feel of flesh, a broach of blood, upon the blade; and still withal, the boy had not felt the call of his untimely death.

In this monumental failure, the Skein had dropped all pretence to seduction, the pallid glow of his girlish face now paler than the waning shades of a shying moon, bleeding white and flushed away like his hopes for success and a fattened pouch. Wherein the dead obscurity, he heeded the ring of sliding metal, weapons of course that the enforcer had called upon in this precarious hour. Though the Argente was gashed, though the ferrous stench of blood began its spread like a swollen cloud, awareness of peril had dawned upon his thinly chiselled features and roused his cold and calculating prowess; with the eye of the mind, the mentalist beheld the unwonted inner workings of the Argente’s brain, the complex streams of mathematical glyphs that stormed within his skull, processing each and every scintilla of information from the slews of knowledge offered by the surrounding microcosm with the utmost care and an infinite precision. ‘A machine.’ No utterance had come from his locked lips, but the lividness splayed across his countenance was a picture that spoke all the words in the world. What option was he left with, when faced with a being who could see emotions and translate them into naught but nettlesome variables in the equation of the universe? The Skein was trapped within a feeble body, a cornered mouse before a snarling feline. ‘What good is this body now? There is nothing! Nothing in here that I could-’

A thrum had made its way into his head, a droning sound that oscillated with the hypnotic rhythm of a pendulum. ‘What an odd sound’, the psychic thought, forgetting his predicament for a moment’s lapse. No longer did he peer through the ghastly oculus of her eyes, for he broke his stare and immersed himself in this Lillian’s psychic landscape once more. It was a colossal temple built upon myriad slabs of precious marble, its architectural splendour inspiring reverence even within him, a sorcerer who had seen the inner chambers of a thousand men. It was fascinating how her mind had been moulded into a lieu of reverence, so grand that it could house the entire starscape itself, so stunning in design that it would put to shame even the greatest draughtsmen of yore. What intrigued the mind walker most, however, was the utter lack of furnishings, the simple void housed within this sanctuary. No tapestries upon the walls, no colourful frescoes upon the octet of walls, no intricate stucco work upon the stark black colonnades that supported the rotunda overhead, and nary an ornament blessed the bare ceiling of the vaulted dome. It was as though the entire structure was carved from a single stone – not with earthly tools, but the breath of a god.

Here, only two things were discrepancies. First was the oculus that hung over his head, a circular gateway to the outer world for whoever stared into its eye with enough intent. ‘A person’s inner world, one’s refuge from reality, is always a place where thoughts can run wild without consequence. The simple-minded see but roiling shadows, and perhaps the outlines of a dark room, whereas those endowed with imagination can see complex worlds of their own making. However, never before had I seen one build in one's mind an actual passageway between the realms.’ In his wonderment, he brought his gaze to his soles, or rather, what lay beneath them, a symbol, a sigil of some sort, whose design was still and shifting altogether, whose shapes and bends could not be wholly grasped, as though his human mentality lacked the depth to comprehend its transcendental abstractness. The only thing within his realm of knowledge was that the pulse, the droning hum found its origin from the strange figure that marred the marbled floor.

Only then did he notice a third anomaly.

In the heart of the ever-changing emblem was a dark pool, its turbid waters seething a low-hanging mist of purplish splotches, one that reminded him of a witch’s cauldron. The stories often told of witchcraft, of wicked curses brewed in iron pots or sacrilegious spells that unlocked the gates between the world of the living, and that of the dead. The Skein was never a man to believe in old wives’ tales, but his incredulity was not enough to dismiss what he was witnessing with his own two eyes. Moreover, was he not himself a worker of the darker arts, one to dabble in the essence of the mind? Who was he to doubt in witches and the afterlife? Perhaps there was truth in these myths, perhaps there was none; but no matter the answer, the Skein was sure of one thing, and that was the overwhelming power with which this murky puddle radiated... and to say that it was just within his reach. In the end, this body could still be of use.

Dropping to his knees, the sorcerer plunged his bony hands into the nocturnal haze with a maniacal cackle.

:::::::::

Though his stay in the girl’s inner temple had seemed lengthy, it had been to the world but the briefest of instants. The cluttered alley, the doused lighting, the fetor of iron, the flummoxed boy: everything had struck the Skein like a knife in the guts upon his return, and the illusory pain had broken into his every limb. The mentalist struggled against staggering steps, holding himself in check with a shuddering hand against his throbbing forehead. ‘Ugh, what just happened?’ the complaint was hoarse in his mind, still wracked with an unexplainable ache that strained his thoughts thin and made it all a jumbled mess. He wanted to curse, but thought it wiser to forsake in silence whatever god would first come to mind. Slowly, the pain receded, and little by little did his control return with a much needed composure. Staring through the quailing slits of his eyes, he noticed upon the dank ground a faint shimmer, its hues reminiscent of lavender fields, sans the flowers and their aroma, and when he heaving up his free hand, the sorcerer saw the gleam intensify, realizing in his awe that it had been the source all along. Dancing in the crook of his palm was a caliginous substance that presented itself in the form of an inchoate sphere of darkness, fuming an amethyst light that twisted through the air in cursive spins, which gave everything present a sickly, rotten look.

When the enforcer enquired about his identity – or rather, this girl’s very nature – the Skein, overcome with a renewed arrogance, let a devilish grin burn through his flushed lips and locked eyes with his wounded prey. What sweetness, that of triumph once more. No longer was he doomed to fail, for in his hands were evil powers afloat; he was glad and cocky now, for he acted as if he had gypped the Devil himself into a one-sided transaction. ‘I have received tremendous powers by pure accident, and the Dark Prince now finds himself poorer and without a soul to play with.’ The Skein trudged forward into the alley to face the enforcer; his gait was proud and deliberate, a masculine swagger rather than the elegant prance the Argente was acquainted with. He came to a halt, just out of his exotic weapons’ reach, and spoke with a dramatic flair, akin to the tremulous cries of doomsayers. “I am the Devil, come to reap what is rightfully his.” Highly entertained, he decided to continue the falsehood and don the fiery cloth, the guise of the Deceiver.

“Your time has come, child. You are faced with a dire quandary: either relinquish this soul of yours, or suffer incommensurable pain for the insolence that is refusal to cooperate.” If there was a chance of killing the boy without a scuffle, then the sorcerer would gladly take it, but he knew that the chances of this happening were slim; therefore, he decided to even out the odds. The movement was deliberate, so that the man would see everything without fail; his arm was drawn out, the ball of shadows nearing closer to the grimy bricks of the wall, when suddenly, the violet tendrils lashed at the coarse matter. The rugged surface bubbled for an instant, until it released a mephitic reek that polluted the narrow alleyway; slowly, the wall was rotting, eroding under the condensed blight of the malevolent sphere. Then, without any notice, he swung the fuming orb and sent it careening in the enforcer’s direction, the ball hissing and buzzing like a flock of a thousand flies, hungering to feast upon his putrid corpse.

“I have reassessed your options. I will simply kill you where you stand,” the impostor declared with an unnerving calm as his mental hand dove for the inky black waters, the source that had fueled the bolt of rot and that would fuel the blighting spell once more.

[Devin Argente]

When the assassin's blade remained still in response to his question, adrenaline finally ceased to occlude Devin's focus. Sight and scent became more intense as his body slowly attuned itself to the cold brilliance that had conquered his mind. He needed no longer command his arms and legs, for in this perfect harmony, they themselves appeared to know what to do, and when. Few would ever draw closer to such unity of act and thought, and although the powerful hallucination stinted any form elation, for fear of being distracted, Devin could not help but feel illustrious whenever that knowledge dawned on him. At the moment, however, he’d much rather that his state of mind had not been accompanied by those amplified sensations. As the assassin walked towards him with unnaturally heavy tread, and equally harsh words, the events inside the deserted passageway swiftly took a turn for the worst. Mino had been right after all.

In the blink of an eye, the corruption within the girl’s core deepened, emitting stale amethyst whereas Devin’s concentration should have ousted any concept of colour. Primal instincts urged him to turn around, to flee, to hide. Horror permeated the shell of what Devin and his compatriots had once deemed impenetrable, and it was only through experience that the enforcer managed to hold on to his desperate transcendence. Nevertheless, he took a trembling step backwards. In his eyes, the entity afront him was no longer the queer lass with eerie, sapphire stare – no, what he saw now was a revolving shadow that covered every inch of the alleyway, horned and crimson-gazed, with two tentacles on both sides of its jagged torso whose touch – Devin could tell – might be worse than death. A nightmarish phantasm, a delusion on any other occassion, but the Argente knew that while focusing, his eyes displayed to him nothing but the truth.

One of the beast’s arms now stretched out towards the wall it was nearest to, as though to block any potential escape route. Devin afforded a quick look over his shoulder. The passage was completely straight, and went on for thirty yards or so. In his tension, it also seemed exceptionally narrow. Any child with a shortbow would be able to shoot him from afar, and there was no rubbish to hide behind, no niche in the slate stone that could offer him refuge. His eyes returned to the one who wished him dead. Why? Devin understood now the outcry that many of his victims uttered in their final gasp, the terminal craving to know what had brought their death upon them – a longing that he had never fully understood, until now. It all seemed so… meaningless. What would killing him accomplish? He was no leader, he had no secrets of value... He managed to pull himself together on the verge of breakdown. He was not yet dead.

Loathsome energy had formed around his opponent’s outstretched fingers. Its prehensile grapnels of black and purple licked at the wall, greedily pervading the stone’s structure. The sturdy surface crumbled as if liquified by the shadow's touch of decay. His mahogany orbs were latched onto the dark projectile, which he knew would be flung his way any second now. That recognition strengthened his resolve, as well as any human hardened when they were granted knowledge of what hardships they were about to endure. Fear was again forced to withdraw its tendrils from his skull, allowing his body freedom of movement. The assassin’s purple-veiled hand moved forward, and his body had engaged in reflex before his mind could tell it to do so.

He dropped down to his hands and feet, his body stretched out as much as possible, but his arms still supporting his shoulders, as though he were doing push-up excercises, with one knee slightly bent, toes pushing against the cobblestones like an arrow against its bowstring. His eyes remained locked onto his foe’s form, and although now that the lethal energy was gone, it had reverted to the appearance of a pale girl again, Devin could sense the impurity that still bloomed within her. The black projectile raced overhead, molding with the shadows of the alley as it travelled to a destination Devin would never be able to ascertain, for he acted a split second after the hazard had passed. The hand of his wounded arm reached inside his pocket while he lunged forward, the other hand keeping its katar close to his shoulder, alike a snake ready to strike.

“Lost your touch?” he growled in reference of the true Devil’s ability to kill whomever it wished, without fail. The spoken thought bolstered his confidence. This was no demon. If anything, this was a mage, a necromancer; powerful, maybe, but he’d killed mages before. His katars whispered in concurrence.

The distance between them was closed in an instant. Devin’s weaponless hand shot from its pocket and his fingers opened wide. An aphotic cloud of tiny, crepuscular particles gallopped towards his attacker’s delicate features. Although many warriors preferred something more conventional like sand or dust, every Argente associate always bore a hidden pouch of powdered iron shreddings. Once set loose, these menacing metal morsels were like small knives, causing lasting injury to eyes and ears, and possibly evoking suffocation if enough clung to the insides of the victim’s nose and mouth. He delayed his own assault, so that he himself would not be affected by his own diversion. Yet when it came, it was swift like a cornered feline, striking at the girl’s left shoulder while his hurt arm returned to his torso to provide cover. It was no strike to kill. She could only provide him with information if she was kept alive. And information was something he desperately required, now that he was no longer the all-knowing spider in his shady web of subterfuge.

[Ataraxis]

“Good grief, I throw like a girl!” he muttered through gritted teeth, a mild curse escaping in between the pearl-white bars. Was is still blasphemy if the Devil swore an oath? Whatever the case, how the Argente had so masterfully eluded the rotting essence by falling on all fours had flung the mentalist in a childish frustration and had wrested from his once-composed maw the spite of damnation. “Impudence does nothing to alleviate your arrears.” The retort had grated his throat like rakes upon desiccated phlegm, so forceful and raucous that did nothing to expunge suspicion as to his true identity. ‘Ah, to hell with the Devil.’ He had already drifted out of character, and there was nothing in his floundered act that could still be salvaged: there was no point in sustaining any Mephistophelean pretension, especially since he was such a callow actor to begin with. It was something to master the strings, but it was a whole other world to put on a good show – and what a dreadful spectacle this was indeed.

For a momentous lapse, he had lost track of worldly happenings in favor of his outrage, and was thusly oblivious to the fleet charge of the enforcer and the deathly slice of his punching swords, silvern trails in that cut along the nightly air. By the time his sapphirean eyes had clasped onto the fleeting shadow of black and white, it was already upon him, hunkered down and apparently closing in for the kill. In an act of despair, the Skein flailed his arms, brandishing the glassed edge of a dirk in one hand, the transient glow of chaotic magic in the other, and threw both outward in a hopeless attempt to either to stab him deep or afflict him with accursed putrefaction. It was with unconcealed befuddlement that, rather than hurtling the decaying spherule, the motion had summoned pillars of mauve fire from the alley shadows, contradictive spires of refreshing coolness and all-consuming heat. ‘What nonsensical magic is this?’

What metallic particles the enforcer had unleashed as a diversion were mostly swept away and sublimated inside the fiery columns and anything within the hazy screen of dancing lilac was heated to ludicrous temperature, while everything else beyond its boundaries, such as the clutter of trash, the rucks of folded cloth or the burnish of skin, saw its temperature drop at an alarming rate and a coat of frost form upon its surface. ‘Is this what Hell looks like when it freezes over?’ The Skein was not sure if this were a miracle or yet another well-disguised curse, and only watched the blazes dance and lick the grime-smeared bricks. Perhaps if the enforcer was unable to stop his onslaught and was caught inside the net of purple fire, and proceeded to a most excruciating death…

Alas, the wall of contradictions flickered like the transience of dying candlelight, doused by intangible gusts that came from every which way until naught was left but an ephemeral smoke that was drafted away into the expanse of the starless night. The Skein gulped deeply, and though the stale air was no longer rife with the iron powders, a few flakes were still lingering about, and the mentalist had unmindfully breathed in a fair concentration of the noxious dust. In a fit of cough, the Skein was trapped, and was utterly hapless when the tapered tip of a katar punctured his left shoulder, spraying a mist of blood over the immaculate garb and the argent blades of his foe. He was pinned by his enemy, had become but a wreck of sparking pain and was now in dire straits, his mind so convulsive that he was unable to perform any sorcerous feat. ‘I need something! There has to be something else in here that I can use!’ the Skein babbled mentally, trying to close his eyes so as to return to this girl’s inner sanctum.

Who are you?

The seamless stone floor, the arrays of black pillars and the hollowed cupola that stared from above; the octagonal temple was the same as far as he could remember, save for the non-Euclidian abhorrence that hovered above the muddle of chaotic energies. It was a crystal, multi-faceted, yet it also carried the perfection of a sphere. It was an opaque black, full and solid, yet inside roiled a fluid purple, as though the thing was a concave shell. Was it emitting light, or siphoning it all away inside its ocular core? Though he observed the floating crystal from a distance, he had the strange sensation that it had trapped him, that it expanded yonder even the temple walls. The Skein did not understand. He could not understand. He simply could not.

Nothing was clear to him, except that within this mental eidolon, dwelt a third mind. Before him, before this Lillian girl, was a numinous entity, as far from humanity as can be.

You are not of the Atizarvara, yet you drink from their Fountain? You deserve no stay in the Antechamber. Away with you, shameless gadfly.

The crystalline body radiated a sinister light, and the Skein felt his body crushed from all sides, his ribcage shattered and piled as if it were wedged through a particularly narrow pass, his lungs punctured more than a cooking sieve. Where he was sent, there was no air to breathe, no sound to hear, no light to see; only the sweet void of oblivion.

:::::::::

“Agh!” came the painful cry, borne with the pitiable ring of a thousand broken bells. For an awkward length had the female body dangled from the argent skewer, bleeding so profusely that half her garb was impregnated with a ferrous crimson. The shriek had sent a jolt through the body and from the gash it slid with a sickly sound, spurting a final jet of blood before her harrowed body fell flat against the cobbled ground, writhing as spiteful tears beaded from her quavering eyes, agasting orbs of fearsome cobalt.

“Why are you doing this to me? I just wanted your help!” Lillian hollered in hackles and confusion, fighting hard against the all but unbearable pain in her shoulder wound and sweltering throat; what was she doing here, so far from the main avenue, so far from the marketplace? Why was he there, this man to whom she had extended her supplication, wielding a blade now slippery with her blood? What a perverse plan the universe had for her, she thought at the paroxysm of fury and vulnerability. One last time she hollered, finally breaking under the constant duress of agonizing years, whimpering on the cold cobbles as an abandoned cherub, with only the swathe of a sanguineous blanket as solace for the heart. “Why?!”

[Devin Argente]

Devin had witnessed many strange phenomena in his life, but as he flew towards his opponent and his adrenaline made time slow to a crawl, he was forced to acknowledge that many miracles still eluded him; for one moment, he found himself hovering upon the edge of an icy embrace that would have rendered the chilly winds of Salvar envious. And yet, as he moved farther forward, the enforcer’s outstretched hand was overwhelmed by the sting of all-devouring heat. Spires of vague yet puncturing light threw up an intangible barricade afront him. He wanted to scream in pain as he squinted his eyes to a close, fighting off the pain. But then, the torture ended as abruptly as it had come, and his assault continued relentlessly. Imagination?

His heart beat like a triumphant war drum as his katar pierced soft flesh and vein, the remainder of his cruel diversion dissipating into the decayed air as far as it had not found its way into his foe’s bleak features. It had not been the case. He retracted the silver blade smoothly, swiftly as the snake that the weapons’ attack pattern was based upon. Even in this shadow-filled avenue, one could see its runic silver besmudged by crimson flow. Devin had to repress the temptation to strike again, and again; the privilege of any predator, a bloodlust he had once judged himself to be far above, struck him with a primordial vehemence that his deep focus could only narrowly fend off. However, when the girl’s spiny frame slid to the ground with groan and cry, helpless and tormented, the frightening fervor was quickly replaced with a growing tinge of disquiet. The disturbing feeling of something being completely wrong, as much as it had irked him while he had not yet known of the assassin’s intentions, returned with its power increased a thousandfold.

“No no no… No!” His worried mumbling changed into a frenetic outcry as panic swept over the edges of his attuned mind, and he suddenly knew all too well what had gone awry. No longer did the frail female that now wept at his feet harbor the faintest touch of darkness. In a moment so short that no adjective could serve to describe it, the shadow inside her had gone away. It had not withdrawn its tentacles, it had not concealed itself – it had simply disappeared. The accusations of her iron-torn voice mingled mercilessly with the weight that crashed down upon his conscience. Murder. He had murdered an innocent being… Worse, she had asked for his help, he had known that she was being possessed, and yet – in what might be deemed a frantic charge fueled by naught but fear and instinct – his katars had pierced her pristine flesh relentlessly.

No! Damn it, no! Don’t you die, in the name of whatever you believe in!

Whereas terror could not deprive him of his concentration earlier, self-inspired guilt now overcame the mental buttresses he had erected. Colour returned to his eyes, but it did not help much in this forsaken avenue, where shade reached deeper than the starless night above. Devin’s hands quivered as he put the bloodied katar back into his sleeve. Although knitting together nicely, the wound on his left arm burnt fiercely – and yet, it paled in comparison to the poor creature beneath him. He kneeled next to her and turned her on her back as she ached for air. The gown, once alabaster, was soaked with her blood. She had lost much, and considering her small stature, Devin was very much unsure of whether there was anything he could do. His strike had severed much of the arteries leading towards her left arm. In an upsurge of dark cynicism, he was grateful that his katars had not yet been adorned with serrated blades, as he had originally planned them to be this morning.

There was little he could do; first aid was not his specialty, and he did not have any bandages or medical tools on him. He inhaled deeply in an attempt to keep his composure, but failed miserably when the ferric odor of fresh and older blood wafted into his nostrils. Without ado, he ripped a ribbon-like part from his white vestments and knotted it around the gaping wound. It immediately turned red, but no blood seeped or sprayed from under it, which slightly boosted the enforcer’s confidence. As softly as he could, he put the injured lady into a sitting position, spreading her arms wide, and put slight pressure against her lower back to ease her desperate lungs. It did not serve to heal her in any way, but at least she would not choke out of sheer shock. As he held her so awkwardly, he noticed the mysterious dirk lying on the cobblestones nearby. The blade that had previously been sent in crescent arc towards his throat lay in a tranquil bath of hardened blood. His blood. Good. That was at least some evidence that he was not a stone cold killer.

Hoping that he’d stopped the bleeding sufficiently, Devin shifted his attention to the girl’s convulsing throat. Apparently, the columns of ice and flame had not consumed all of his unscruplous powder; he did not worry too much, though, for she was in no direct danger of truly choking. Unless the sharpnel was left in her flesh for too long, it would not have time to nestle itself into the soft tissue, and would be unable to leave permanent wounds. Fortunately, Argentes who were deemed responsible enough to wield the powder’s deadly properties were also given a means to cure it, even if not all damage could be reversed. His trembling hand reached into a thick pocket inside his jacket, and returned with a small, black rock which remotely resembled a jagged cube. A magnet, an awfully powerful magnet.

Devin released his attacker’s arms and took hold of her chin, excercising pressure with his thumb beneath her pale lower lip, causing her mouth and teeth to part. He carefully positioned the magnet inbetween her front teeth, and awaited the familiar sound of iron ticking against the rock’s surface. Considering the tiny delay between his assault and her unexpected redemption, the iron had not had much time to sink into flesh, so her mouth would not suffer any more than small - albeit annoying - gashes from the treatment. He could only hope that she wouldn’t faint. Carrying a blood-smeared, unconscious girl over your shoulder was not exactly the greatest way of steering clear of unwanted attention.

[Ther]

Ataraxis

Story
Continuity - 7
Setting - 6
Pacing - 4
Writing Style
Mechanics - 6
Technique - 5
Clarity - 5
Character
Dialogue - 5
Action - 6
Persona - 5
Misc.
Wild Card - 4

Total – 53

Devin Argente

Story
Continuity - 7
Setting -6
Pacing - 5
Writing Style
Mechanics - 6
Technique - 5
Clarity - 5
Character
Dialogue - 5
Action - 6
Persona - 5
Misc.
Wild Card - 2

Total – 52

Ataraxis wins 53 to 52 and both players will earn 1/2 the normal EXP/GP.