Round 2: Izvilvin vs. Patois

[Artifex Felicis]

Thread will end in 2 weeks time, at 12:00 PM EST on May 6th.

Best of Luck! Finish your battle early so it can be judged early!

[Izvilvin]

The letter was like dozens of others Izvilvin had received over the years, and yet it was a shock to find. Sitting precariously on the rump of his midnight steed, the envelope, shut with a crimson seal, awaited the Drow as he excited the inn where he’d spent his night. He knew what the S on the seal represented, but knew not what orders it could contain.

His fingers tore open the envelope with experienced speed, and he whipped the paper out to examine it. It was, as always, written in dark ink in the eloquent language of the dark elves, and was short on details. The handwriting was always the same – plain, almost drab – and the letter was a mere two lines long. It said to go to Radasanth, by the town fountain, and kill a sailor who fit a brief description.

As was typical, the letter ended abruptly and showed no signature or sign of farewell.

He crushed the paper in his ebony hands, and stuffed the crumpled mess into the packet by the side of his horse. The warrior didn’t need to worry about anything but the end result, for Step would organize the circumstances in a way that would pull the two subjects together. As willing as they were to organize someone’s death, Step never really did the dirty work, and viewed themselves as too proud to resort to poison and the like.

He’d done enough work for the group to know that he needed to get to Radasanth as quickly as he could, so Izvilvin mounted his horse and made his way west, away from the outpost and forgetting the plans he’d had for the day.

[Patois]

The large shouldered sailor stads stoically, leaning back and forth slightly as creaky wooden planks groan beneath his feet with the shifting of his weight. In his hand rests a yellowing parchment, which is the center of his attention. The room he's in is darkened, a single large panel of pale sunlight from the balcony opening cast into the room, stretching his shadow across the ashy grey wood floor.

"It just doesn't feel right." He mutters as his eyes trace back and forth over the page, a page he's read over a dozen times today alone.

"That's why we're sending Jonas out there for this meeting." A voice calls from across the room. There is a shuffling sound as behind a shade, a man is moving things around, concealed from Angio's view.

"That's what I was talking about. If my bad feeling about this is right, we're throwing him to the wolves."

Angio places the parchment on a nearby table, scratching his head and caughing a bit, the mildew smell of the room getting to him slightly as he looks towards the panel of light pouring in, squinting for his eyes to adjust. The words on the page he set down continue to stare up at him, a mysterious and ominous warning...

Last week, that same page beared different words. The name of the man known as "Wentworth" and directions to the Red Forest. For a week Angio had tried to remember the events of the fight with the man, but an overindulgence of drink the night of the skirmish had wiped it from his memory. All he carried from it was a still-healing laceration on his shoulder and the knowledge that he had won. And of course, this accursed parchment. It was two days ago when he realized it was magically enchanted, as the words had erased themself and been replaced by new ones: "Go to the Corone Empire, to the city of Radasanth. In two days when the noon sun sits overhead, a courier will meet you at the fountain in the main plaza." He still had no clue as to the meaning of all of this or the origin of the note, but he was sure of one thing; he would have to play along with this little game if he wanted the answers. Still, another set of words had appeared at the bottom of the page just this morning, and they were the ones that truly haunted the sailor.

"If you're still alive tomorrow morning, you will have succeeded."

The words echoed in Angio's head as Captain Monieux peeked around from behind the screen looking preturbed.

"Get that nonsense out of your head..."

Angio snaps back to the present moment, looking up with a perverse look as if trying to read his friend's face. Mind reading was a new trick for him. The tall captain of the Ivory Pyre stepps out, dressed a bit more comfortably than normal but holding his large captain's coat in his hands as he steps out into the room, carrying it outstretched towards the sailor.

"My man wouldn't be going down there if we didn't think it was for the best. I don't know exactly what's the story with these messages dragging you all over Althanas, but I certainly don't trust them."

Angio exhales, relaxing. His friend hadn't read him mind, but was just continuing the conversation. Which was good, because Angio had already been chastised twice by his former shipmate over analyzing the yellowing piece of paper.

"Now, stretch out your arms, Ang. I don't know how well it will fit, but we have to try it." The Captain says. Scowling, Angio reluctantly extends his arms to the side, shaking his head.

"I told you I don't do much for armor." he says with a grimace, the sleeves of the heavy coat sliding tightly over his arms. The captain was a bit smaller than him, so the fit was going to naturally be uncomfortable, nevermind that the coat was heavy. He could feel small metal plates shift between the fabric layers, nipping at his skin as the brigandine jacket came around him.

"Yeah, well, you don't have a choice in this one, you stubborn ass. If this plan fails, they you're going to need it. Besides, it's less for protection as it is for concealment." Captain Monieux says as he rubs his hands over the maroon, suede-like material on the outside of the coat, adjusting it at Angio's broad shoulders to help the fit. Placing a hand on his friend's shoulder, the captain turns him around, looking him up and down before reaching out to fasten the clasps on the front. As he runs the wooden pegs through the string eyelets, he looks up at Angio.

"Afterall, this 'courier' is going to be looking for a sailor, not a captain. And if they don't buy in to Jonas, I at least want suspicion to be pulled away from you."

Angio grumbles under his breath, knowing better than to argue.

"This is one I can't win. Let's just hope this is just a simple meeting and everyting is calm. I'd hate to think that I put him in harm's way..."

As the final clasp was secured, Angio stepped back from Monieux, who continued to survey him. The coat was even tighter than expected, and the sailor didn't dare take a deep breath for fear his swollen chest would pop the clasps right off. Even now, the metal plates inside the coat jabbed at his ribs as a constant annoyance. Walking carefully and upright, he crossed a few feet to the open balcony, stepping out into the sunlight. His eyes fell to the fountain, where a junior crewman of the Pyre was waiting, looking around the crowd. The man was smaller and stockier than Angio was, and had his hair concealed beneath a large bandana. It wasn't ideal, but being the only Fallien among the crew, Jonas was the only one other than Angio who was dark-skinned. It wasn't an ideal decoy, but it was the closest they could come up with. Hopefully, whoever the courier was didn't know enough about Angio to be able to distinguish the man in the plaza masquerading as him.

"You know, Ang, after this one, you owe me. You owe us." The captain came from behind, clapping a hand on his friend's shoulder. "That man down there is putting himself on the line for you. I'm putting myself on the line for you. I'm putting my entire crew on the line for you in this cryptic little cat-and-mouse game."

Turning away from the balcony, Angio shakes his head, looking his former crewmate in the eyes. "I know, and I appreciate it deeply, my brother."

Scoffing, Captain Monieux curls one side of his mouth up in a sardonic grin. "Yeah, well, keep your appreciation. We want our brother back. We get through this successfully, I want you to rejoin the crew of the Ivory Pyre, to come back to your family. It's the least you can do for us contantly sticking our neck out for ye."

With a deep sigh, Angio walked past his friend, crossing the room.

"The one thing I was afraid you were going to ask me for. Again.

"Well, we'll have to see after this day is over. In the meantime, let's go ahead and get down into the crowd. It's almost noon, and I don't want to leave your man down there by himself. If something goes wrong- which I fear- then it's something that was intended for me, and I don't plan to be far from it when it happens." The two men began making their way out of the dim, dank room, leaving only the echoes of their footsteps and the mildew smell still hanging in the air behind.

[Izvilvin]

The trip from Underwood to Radasanth was no more than a few hours long for Izvilvin’s mighty horse. Racing past blurring trees, the two ebony figures broke free of Concordia an hour before noon, and approached the gates of the city in a slow, somber trot.

To the Drow warrior it was all so familiar, following the orders of an unsigned, impersonal letter that demanded the ending of a mortal life. In the beginning he had been the gatherer of information, the interloper who snuck into Jya’s Keep one fateful night two years prior. It had been his place to observe and learn, to write in his native tongue what he saw, not heard. His difficulty with the Fallien and Common tongues were a blessing for Step, for the intentions of words were lost on Izvilvin. He judged on appearance, on expression and movement. It was thanks to his perception of weakness in the Keep, in the Jya herself, that Step learned of the fragility of Irrakam’s people. Through the Drow, Step gained information that they acted upon, playing a key role in the Fallien siege – from the shadows, as was typical. As a result, Irrakam was shaken and battered. Without even realizing it, Izvilvin had brought suffering upon the people and land that he had grown to love.

The siege brought Izvilvin’s fighting prowess to the forefront. Though he was Step’s pawn, his actions were the result of his strong ties to the Fallien people. From a distance he was watched, gleefully pondered over by those who would own him for the rest of his centuries of life. His passion brought out his inner strength, strength that could be useful.

Step, never passing up an opportunity, gave him a new role. He was skilled at gathering information, surely, but with his increasing ability to understand those he observed, Izvilvin’s way of judging had changed. Words were a bigger factor in his observations, and he had grown less effective. But as an assassin, he was the organization’s dream. Silent, quick and deadly, as skilled with his sai as any legend was with a sword, Izvilvin killed who he was told to, and did so with frightening precision. A moral dilemma never arose; it was kill or be killed, and Izvilvin valued his own life over all others. A perfect pawn.

Today would be no different, except that there would be an audience. The Drow was pondering the ways in which he could lure the man away from the public, when he rode onto the hard bricks of Radasanth’s ground.

Bustling as always, Radasanth was in motion, seeming to pulsate like living tissue. People roared along the wide gravel road, surrounding and passing him as if he were a boulder in the Niema River. It was loud, deafeningly so to his sensitive ears, but Izvilvin could tune out the noise as easily as he could focus on it. He stopped a few feet past the gate and gazed carefully toward the center of town. It was far, but his eyes could close to distance easily. There were several people by the fountain, a circular pool of water with a concrete image of Emien Harthworth pointing a sword up high, but none of them fit the description he had.

Dismounting nimbly, Izvilvin directed his steed past scores of humans, bringing it to the stable. He plucked a gold piece from his pocket and tossed it into the waiting hand of the caretaker, moving toward the center of town.

He didn’t wait long before he picked out his man approaching from within a crowd. Dark skin, dark eyes and darker hair, he could see them all even from a distance of over eighty feet. More than anything, the mark’s clear agitation made it obvious he was the one. Izvilvin’s first thought was to check his weapons, but knew the movement would unnerve the approaching human, who was looking intently at him. It was times like these that made him wish Step provided more information, at least concerning what his role was supposed to be.

Jonas approached with as confident a gait as he could manage, which wasn’t nearly good enough to make him look at ease. For him, picking out the one he was supposed to meet was not hard. The Drow was the most obvious figure around, and was looking at him with strong, focused eyes, eyes with purpose. Purpose for what, Jonas didn’t know, but he was feeling safe enough among hundreds of citizens.

The human approached the Drow and nodded, avoiding the stare of those lavender eyes. Izvilvin watched, taking an early measure of the man as they came to stand alongside one another. The human projected no air, no aura of any sort. He looked profoundly nervous. Izvilvin wondered, silently, if he’d done anything at all to deserve his fate.

“Xun dos zhaun vel'uss dos ph' talthalra?” Izvilvin asked, his voice clear and sharp. When Jonas opened his mouth, unsure of how to respond, the Drow cleared his throat and spoke again. “Do you know why you meeting?”

The sentence wasn’t perfect, and somehow the Drow knew it. Jonas initially began to nod, but caught himself and turned it into a shake of his head instead. “No, not really. I received a letter that told me to come here and meet a courier, but I don’t know what it’s all about.”

Izvilvin caught the meaning, and had to stifle a sigh. ”Then why did you come?” he wanted to ask. ”You could have saved yourself.”

Step had left him with the daunting task of thinking on his feet, something Izvilvin did incredibly well in action but not in speech.

“There is a package, at the inn” the Drow said, “follow and I will give.”

Before Izvilvin could turn to lead the way, hoping to get Jonas in a secluded room where he could do the job, the human stopped him. Jonas didn’t want to be led anywhere, didn’t want to be away from the public to be someplace secluded with a dangerous-looking Drow with weapons strapped all along his belt. “Who sent it?”

The dark elf stopped and turned about slowly. His mind was racing; who would send a Drow to deliver a package? The answer seemed obvious enough. “Vordutin,” he said, unaware that the general had been dead for a few years already.

Jonas hesitated. “Vordutin? General Sindareth Vordutin’s heir? I was not aware he had a child.”

Izvilvin did his best to hide his impatience. “Sindareth sent package.”

If Jonas had been unnerved before, now he was stricken with outright fear. If the Drow was lying to him, he was trying to lure Jonas into a trap of some sort. “Vordutin’s been dead for years,” he said, more of a commentary to himself than anything directed Izvilvin’s way. Jonas took a step back.

“What?” Izvilvin said, taking a hard look at Jonas’ face. The human showed no signs of lying. He took a step forward to make up for Jonas’ step back. “Vel'bol xunus dos telanth?!”*

Nobody had taken any notice of them. Jonas took another step back and began to turn. With lightning speed, Izvilvin drew a sai and drove it toward the side of the human’s neck, a precise stab that the warrior hoped would kill him immediately. If he was lucky, Izvilvin could kill the mark and quickly escape the city. If he was unlucky, Jonas had an iron neck.

*What did you say?!

[Patois]

Angio Patois, man of the seas, burly and brash former pirate, and unknowingly- completely lucky bastard- had watched from the crowd next to his friend and former captain. They had stared on at the junior crewman acting as a decoy, slinking down slightly as the dark elf had approached him. They had stayed hushed despite the crowd noise, trying the best they could to hear his words futilely. And then, it all came together.

With a flash of metal, the drow brings a three pronged blade up alongside Jonas' neck. The sailor reacts to the motion without seeing the weapon, jerking backwards. It isn't enough, and proves to be the difference between instant death and simply inevitable death. Instead of going cleanly in and piercing the spinal cord, it strikes closer to the front of the neck, punching through the carotid artery, a faint pop ushering from inside as the sai punctures the cricoid cartilage. Bright red arterial spray pulses out from the wound in heartbeat rhythms, spurting in an arch to form a monochromatic rainbow issuing from the wound.

Angio lets out a whimper watching this and the crowd around drowns him out with surprised yells and shrieks. His mouth hangs open, his brow bunched up in a silent wail as a sea tempest rages in full force inside him. Dark clouds of fear and horror hang over him, blotting out the sun.

He killed him! That bastard killed him!

Lightning strikes of guilt split the dark skies and roar in his ears.

He meant to kill me. If Jonas wasn't posing as me, he'd still be...

And wave after torrential wave of anger pounds against him, pushing him forward towards this drow menace.

No! I won't stand for this.

The power of the storm was so great that it's salty waters swells up, filling his eyes and leaking out onto his cheeks. Angio grits his teeth as his body tries surging forward, a lone figure fighting this storm: Captain Monieux. Gripping his friend and former shipmate around the chest and shoulders, the captain has turned away from his dying crewman and hugs around Angio tightly, his arms struggling to get all the way around his barrel chest and broad shoulders. He leans his full weight in as the sailor fights him with rage, intent to get past.

"No, no, no... don't, Ang." The captain says, leaned in with his mouth pressed to Angio's ear. A pained look wraps around Angio's face, a mask of fury underneath it.

"We have to do something!" Angio says, raising his voice slightly, still largely drown out by the shocked and reactive crowd.

"No! This is exactly why he went out there. This is what we had feared. The whole thing was a trap. Someone wanted you killed. And from the looks of the man they sent, you have drawn the ire of God upon high himself." The captain strains his muscles to hold the sailor back, feeling weight fall forward onto him as Angio slumps forward with emotional fatigue, having a ton wash over him in the span of just a few seconds.

"If you go after him, then Jonas will have died for nothing." The captain says, still holding the hug around Angio, the resistance gone.

"How can you say that? If we stand here and don't act, then he will have died for nothing."

Angio pushed back from his friend, his eyes locking hatefully on the drow.

"Ang, trust me. Whatever this is, it's much bigger than this incident. I am angry and sorrowful, too. But we have to use our heads. Jonas volunteered for this so that this kind of thing didn't happen to you. That was his last wish, that you be safe. As much as I want to agree with you, we have to remember why he did this..."

Angio's stare moves to his friend trying to calm him. His face relaxes, giving up as pain overtakes it, letting the anger slip away. With a heavy hand, he wipes the sea waters from his eyes, breathing deeply. Silently, he gives a nod.

"Good, let's get back to the Pyre..." The captain says, grabbing Angio by the arm and turning him away from the sight of Jonas, who has fallen to the ground as blood continues to spray in gushes from his neck.

And then Angio Patois, the bold, the brazen, the utterly pigheaded idiot, makes his worst move yet. With a hard jerk, he pulls his arm free of Captain Monieux's grip, and turns, shouting with a booming voice.

"STOP!" With an accusing finger, he points right at Izvilvin as some in the crowd part between the two.

"What the hell are you doing?!?" Monieux says, spinning around in surprise.

Stepping forward, Angio's other hand falls to the scabbard at his side, grabbing the hilt of his cutlass in preparation to unsheath it.

Rule #1 of Piracy: Attack with superior numbers, or the guise of superior numbers.

"CALL THE CITY GUARD! THIS MAN HAS MURDERERED ONE OF MY CREWMEN! HE HAS KILLED MY BROTHER."

The crowd might be inclined to take the statements literally, judging Angio by the loaned captain's coat he wore and the shared complexion he has with the man that lay dying near the fountain. He has a suspicion that the assassin would not falsely make that assumption.

Angio Patios, the lucky bastard, the pigheaded idiot, the foolhearty man consigned to death... has just tipped his hand.

[Izvilvin]

Jonas’ soft flesh surrendered to the prong of Izvilvin’s sai, deadly accurate as it drove forward. The human fell as if in slow motion, and the sea of bodies in the center of town began to wash away from the scene, a communal reaction accompanied by shocked screams.

The Drow, trained to be oblivious to the effect one went under when they watched someone die, quickly wiped his sai on the side of his shirt and slid it back into a slot on his belt. He wanted to get away from the scene, but a pair of figures who were moving opposite of the others caught his attention. One man, dressed in a maroon coat and with skin the same tone as the dead Jonas, was struggling to make his way to the fallen mark. With determined arms, a smaller human was behind him, trying desperately to keep him away from the dangerous Drow. Hypnotically, their approach held Izvilvin in place.

As he watched them move and react, he saw a mirror image of himself when Laix and Palmer died. Helpless as he was when Sasarai killed each of his friends, he’d always felt responsible. If either of these two humans lived past today’s events, they too would feel responsibility for their friends’ death. He felt the desire to apologize, but he knew they could not understand the circumstances. They would think he was mocking them. They couldn’t understand that he, as ridiculous as the thought was, understood.

He could only pick out fragments of what they were speaking to each other, unable to decipher their language as well as he wished. Though the shrieks and cries of the crowd were especially tumultuous, Izvilvin’s ears focused on these two and he learned one thing from their talk – he’d be deceived. The two probably figured that he couldn’t hear them over the crowd, but they’d been horribly, fatefully mistaken. Izvilvin shook his head, realizing that his mark lay not upon the ground, but stood a few feet before him. The Drow met the human’s hatful gaze with one that, though regrettably, promised death.

Izvilvin knew what the possibilities were, now, as the two men discussed what had happened. The city guard would come, that was a given, but it would take them a few moments to arrive. Even if they happened to be close by, the Drow gave them no consideration. The only thing that worried him was if the crowd itself somehow overcame their fear and took on a collective courage. Since many had stopped fleeing and were staying to watch the spectacle, that seemed to be a very real possibility.

The two turned, but Izvilvin waited a moment before thinking to pursue. Before he could act on it, Angio spun around and pointed a skinny finger his way. The gesture halted Izvilvin, who had begun to take a step in their direction. His hands dropped to his sai in the same moment that Angio’s went to his scabbard, though the Drow took the extra motion of drawing his weapons, twirling them effortlessly into a reverse grip in each hand.

As Angio made his declaration, his demands to the crowd, the citizens moved as one to create an open space around the three figured.

“You,” Izvilvin said in the Common tongue, pointing one of his iron weapons toward Angio. “You are the one to die, not him.”

The sai danced between Angio and Captain Monieux. “Tesso dosst abbil ulu sevir lu' uk xal dro.”*

The screams were settling a bit, as the murderer seemed uninterested in a mindless killing spree. Onlookers were tentative, but not scared enough to leave the scene. Beyond the ring of citizens approached a group of twenty crimson-clad guards, upon each an emblem of a feather crossed with a sword. Izvilvin spotted them as they broke through the onlookers.

“Zexen'uma rath, Ser mina tarthe dal udossa,”* he demanded of them, flashing a signal with his hand that was almost too quick to catch. Amazingly, their approach slowed. Humans all, they divided up to form a half-circle to hold off the crowd, effectively pinning Izvilvin, Angio and Captain Monieux against the side of the fountain.

Were Corone still a republic, Step would not have held enough sway to allow an agent free reign in a city, Radasanth most of all. But with the rise of the Corone Empire, Step’s role was growing greater as the weeks rolled by. From the position of a small, elite group of interlopers and spies, Step was growing to take on a bigger role as Corone’s assassination squad. The fact that they had continued to keep their secrecy was a testament to their skill. These soldiers knew exactly how vital a Drow like Izvilvin was, but even more, how important it was to appease their helpful brothers.

He pointed a sai at the Captain once more, before dropping into a low stance that left his arms parallel to the ground. “Tell him to leave,” Izvilvin said, slowly, in a sentence that was sharp with Drow pronunciation. His voice, though level and firm, was oddly musical, singing Angio’s final song.

*Tell your friend to leave and he may live
*Stay back, keep them away from us

[Atzar]

This had the makings of a good battle. It's a shame that it didn't go any farther than it did.

Patois, you use present tense. While this is a refreshing change when it works, be careful not to switch between past and present. You did it a number of times. Also, I noticed a few spelling errors that SpellCheck in Word would have caught.

Izvilvin, you were a lot better in terms of mechanics. I only picked up two errors in your posts.

This is really all that I had to comment on, given the lack of completion.

The verdict: because of the Patois' disappearance during the last week of the round, Izvilvin advances to Round 3!

Izvilvin receives 250 EXP.
Patois receives 50 EXP.

[Cyrus the virus]

EXP added!