Veteran Bracket R2: Amaril Torrun vs. Christoph

[Tainted Bushido]

This match begins Friday 9/4/2009 at 12:00 AM and will end on 9/19/2009 at 12:00 AM.

Best Wishes.

[Christoph]

Plink, plink.

The constant staccato of water dripping onto stone echoed through the void of unconsciousness. Elijah’s world slowly rose from the throbbing sea of blackness and silence. Small dots of light came first, pinpricks forcing their way through his aching skull. Next, an unhealthy chill passed through him, though he couldn’t tell whether it was from cold air or merely a product of his own body. He groaned and struggled to move, but a stabbing pain in his head and neck left him immobile.

Plink, plink.

He focused on the dripping, forcing the pain from the foreground of his consciousness. Where was he? How had he gotten there? Who put him there? Those questions needed to be addressed, but he found it difficult to concentrate. His memories still lingered just out of reach, hidden behind a wall of pain. He slowly opened his eyes, squinting as though in anticipating of a bright light. Instead, darkness greeted him. Only the tiniest specks of light were visible on the ceiling, meaning that the dots of light he’d seen upon waking were not the product of a serious head injury after all.

He was in a jail cell of some kind; he knew that much. As the pounding pain in his skull subsided, he began to piece together how he’d come to be there. He remembered sailing from Corone to the exotic continent of Dheathain with some merchants. He traveled to Suthainn, the treetop capital of the native Draconians. And then he found a bar.

“I need to be less predictable,” Elijah mumbled weakly. He tried to recall what had transpired next. He’d entered, ordered a drink, and fell into his usual carousing habits, completely ignorant to Draconian customs and mores. He remembered offending someone, somehow, and a fight broke out – half a bar full of angry scaly men against one foreigner.

He had gotten scared, as much as he hated to admit it, and he'd resorted to pyromancy to preserve his anatomical integrity. And that’s when the guards showed up. Things got blurry after that. He could only surmise that, given the flammable nature of the entire capital, there must have been stern laws against setting things on fire with magic. Magic had lured him to Dheathain, and now it would likely result in him leaving again, in a box.

Plink, plink.

The obnoxious dripping had quickly begun to grate on the captive’s nerves, and the cold stone floor beneath his back had long since grown intolerable. With a defiant grunt, he stood up, and subsequently smashed his head painfully against a low wooden beam that he hadn't seen in the poor light. He staggered unsteadily and slipped on the puddle of water that he should have known was there, falling squarely onto his back again, the water mocking him as it dripped onto his face.

Eli snarled a stream of frustrated curses and struggled back to his feet, carefully avoiding the acquisition of any new head injuries. He felt around for a moment before realizing that he was wasting his time. A quick flick of his hand summoned a swirling ball of flame into his palm and cut through the darkness like a miniature lighthouse beacon. His cell was cramped ten-foot cube. The beam he’d bumped into turned out to be a large, gnarled tree branch. Yet, the floor, walls, and ceiling were made of stone blocks, and the door was solid iron.

“Seriously? This entire city is made from trees, and yet they manage to find a stone cell to lock me up in.” The imprisoned sorcerer sighed and leaned against the wall. His sense of hopelessness waned quickly however, and the intense need to escape filled the void. He did not want to be around when his captors returned to execute him, or whatever else they had in mind. That begged the question of how.

He didn’t have any of his enchanted tools or weapons because he’d left them behind on the ship, for fear of them being stolen in the city. The Draconian authorities would have just confiscated them, anyway. They had doubtlessly stuffed him into the stone cell because they knew that he would have simply burned his way out of any wooden one. If they assumed that stone would hold him, however, they had vastly underestimated him.

In the past, he had mused over potential methods of escape for similar situations; this wasn’t the first time that he had been locked up. His ideas worked in theory, but since thinking them up, he had never had need of them before this. Many things could go wrong. Even a minor mistake could leave him horribly wounded. Still, he preferred that to rotting in a cell.

With his course clear, Elijah went to work. First, he needed to determine which wall led outside. Quickly ruling out the wall with the door, the captive examined the branch. It squeezed through a hole in one wall and out the other. Upon closer inspection, he found that it tapered and rose slightly from right to left, meaning that left would lead him further from the trunk of whatever tree his cell had been build upon. Next came the hard part.

He sat down cross-legged in front of his chosen wall, placed his palms against the cold wall, and began to focus. His consciousness delved into the stones, and for that moment he knew them as intimately as he would a brother or lover. He saw the quarry from which they had been cut and the great effort and ingenuity by which they were brought high into the trees to construct his cell. He could feel the suffering they had witnessed over the years, of prisoners both innocent and guilty.

Slowly, he laced his will through the stone bricks, forcing tendrils of magic through it and slowly transmuting the material into an exotic, explosive substance that he’d found and Fallien over a year ago and had been studying ever since. It was a difficult process, as the two materials were very different, but he’d practiced in the past with pebbles and small stones. He needed only to adjust for scale.

He continued his work for several minutes, until nearly ten square feet of wall had been laced with a marbling of the volatile transmuted substance that sank over a foot into the rock. Then, he traced an invisible rune over that entire wall, breathed life into the spell, and darted into the far corner. The cell quickly dropped in temperature as the warmth in the air rushed toward the wall. The stone beneath where he’d traced his rune began to glow dull red with heat. Elijah conjured up the firmest shield charm that could manage and waited.

And then the wall exploded. Fire consumed the chamber and rock shards battered his barrier. The heat was intense and the thunderous blast threatened to burst his ears.

Once the flame subsided, Elijah darted from his cell and into the open air. Outside, he found a street that resembled that of any human city, except the road held a consistent curve, with doorways on one side and a steep drop on the other. Through the smoke, he could see Draconian women and children rushing inside, as well as guards sprinting at him from both directions on the spiral road. Tree-side settlements and suspended bridges stretched out into the distance. He had no idea where to go, but he couldn’t stay. He eyed the long, treacherous rope bridge before him, and he ran onto it without a second thought.

[Amaril Torrun]

Using liquid time to go back about a week before Amaril's death.

Amaril looked down at his frayed wicker basket, wondering whether or not he was forgetting something. Garlic, cinnamon, and an exotic salt that went by a name he couldn’t pronounce wafted though his nostrils as he counted the various items. It was an oddly tantalizing combination, though he would be the first to admit that he knew little about cooking. Darith, his friend and current host, had sent him out to find the necessary ingredients for the dinner the draconian was planning for that night. Still new to Suthainn, it had taken Amaril quite some time to find his way through the various shops involved in what he now regarded as less of a shopping chore and more of a scavenger hunt.

“Sir! You forgot this!” An elderly draconian woman hustled out of Bridget’s Herb Emporium, holding a small bottle of some sort of spicy sauce. Her tanned wrinkled face showed a nasty scar running down the right side, from temple to chin. It was a sign of the Draconian lifestyle, of an innate attraction to battle.

Amaril didn’t pay the scar any attention. A sigh of mixed relief and anxiety escaped him, as he turned around to retrieve the bottle. “Thank you mam,” he sheepishly responded as he dropped the sauce into his basket. Embarrassed, he began to rush away.

As soon as he started to leave the marketing area for Darith’s home, he heard an explosion from somewhere nearby. Along with the sound came a small shower of debris in the form of small bits of rock and wood chips, forcing him to cover the area in front of his face with his hand. When the air settled, his eyes darted toward the shouting of several draconian guards a few bridges away. Between them stood a seemingly ordinary young man, but he was evidently the one they were angry at.

Do I help?

It took him a moment to think things through. The criminal was obviously outnumbered and wouldn’t be able to defend himself against all the guards. However, his pursuers were halted momentarily by some larger chunks of stone that had been blown onto the spiral path. None of them having the wings needed to get around the stone quickly, the young man seemed to have a very large head start in his attempt to escape. Amaril began to realize that he was being given a golden opportunity to gain some much desired respect. He was still a new citizen of Suthainn, unemployed and without any true home. Guilt ridden by living in Darith’s living room, he had felt the need to prove himself in front of his new peers since his arrival.

He let the wicker basket fall to the ground near the wall of Bridget’s shop, a few contents spilling out as the open container rolled to its side. Spreading his wings to their full width, the thin blue membranes rippled in unison with his sharpening breaths. A part of him wanted to partake in the thrill of battle, but another part told him to stay out of if. Ignoring the cowardly voice inside him for the time being, he instinctively grasped for his prevalida blade typically held between his shoulder blades. His clawed hand however, clutched at nothing but air.

“Blast!” He had left his prized weapon at Darith’s home, not expecting to get into a fight while on his simple errand. He hated the idea of going into battle without it, but the criminal running across the bridge appeared to be more confused than dangerous.

The half-dragon launched himself away from the market, his wings powerfully beating against the humid air. Heading directly toward the escapee, he thought about flying right into the man in order to knock him off the bridge. Unsure of the man’s crime though, he decided against playing the part of executioner. Instead, he swooped over the man’s head and landed in front of him to cut him off.

“Stop!” He snarled, holding out an open palmed hand to pair with his command.

[Christoph]

Without pause, Elijah charged across the shaky bridge that seemed to stretch onward for hundreds of meters. Distant shouts and foreign curses echoed far behind him, but he didn’t look back. Sweat stung his eyes and the thick, humid air choked his lungs. He felt very exposed and vulnerable, but he couldn’t stop or think; he focused solely on reaching the other side.

Suddenly, the entire bridge shook and rattled as a huge, scaly man landed directly in his path, posturing with faux authority. ‘Man’ hardly did the massive bulk of bluish scales, claws, and wings justice. The draconic form filled the entire width of the bridge and towered several inches over the fleeing fugitive. Despite its similarities to the Draconians, this creature clearly had real dragon blood running through his veins.

“Out of the way!” Eli snarled. Naturally, the beast didn’t listen. Despite the beast’s intimidating stature, Elijah didn’t heed its command, either. He hadn’t gone through the effort of escaping only to be caught by some good citizen, no matter how large. Instead, he charged forward, lowering his shoulders take the big brute out at the waist. He’d been through enough barroom brawls in his life to know that size wasn’t everything. A smaller fighter with enough momentum and the right technique could bring down a considerably larger foe if he hit at just the right…

With a resounding wump, Elijah crashed against the scaly mountain at waist level and proceeded to bounce off and land pitifully on his back, while the half-dragon barely budged. The chef cursed and glared up as the beast loomed over him like an implacable wall.

His first instinct was to offer the dragon-man a warning, giving him the chance to fly away before things got ugly. Unfortunately, he didn't have time for the standard fare of the Misunderstood, But Noble Hero. Nor could he go the route of negotiations mixed with thinly veiled threats, as would be typical of the Diplomatic, But Ruthless Villain. Since he wasn't yet keen on murder, he could only resort to his third stock routine, one that an old Coronian naval captain had once called, “Being a Sneaky Jackass.”

Feigning surrender, the fugitive sorcerer held out his hands. He shut his eyes and focused his will, tapping into the swirling energy around him and focusing the ambient heat into a pulsing lance of fire. It billowed purposefully toward the dragon-man, reaching out to envelop him like a fiery claw – sufficiently hot and fast to be a threat, but small enough to avoid destroying the bridge and slow enough to give his target ample opportunity to fly out of the way.

[Amaril Torrun]

Amaril couldn’t believe how easy it had been to stop the criminal and get the young man to surrender. One misstep was all it had taken to bring the captive to the ground, seemingly on the verge of begging for his life. In all the half-dragon’s long life, he had seldom come across such spinelessness. That was his flash of thought before the downed man brought a force of magic between them. The spear-like flames surged forward, burning through the few lengths of air from man to half-dragon.

The dutiful citizen quickly realized his peril and rolled his torso over the rope handrails of the bridge, feeling a painful melting sensation on his insides, caused by the mere proximity of the flames. His body’s icy blood battled the heat as his seizing body tumbled off the bridge, toward the ground laying hundreds of feet below. He was halfway to the swampy floor before he was able spread his wings and glide in a wide spiral. The small pain of the flames disappeared as his icy veins recovered.

Fire! Of all the abilities one can have, why does he have to use fire? It was the bane of his dragon half, a weakness capable of crippling him with even the smallest amounts of the cackling heat.

Amaril beat his wings once more, bringing him back into the fray. From his angle, below and to the side of the bridge, he was able to see the head of the escapee bobbing up and down as the young man returned to his mad dash for freedom. The draconian guards were finally at the beginning of the bridge, but still had a lot of ground to make up. Something told him that the criminal was going to cause quite a bit more problems for Suthainn before they caught up to him. Sucking in his fear of facing another blast of fire, he propelled himself through the air, aiming for the very end of the bridge.

The planks of wood underneath the young man’s feet bounced up and down violently as he charged toward the bridge's exit. Amaril didn’t intend to let him get any further than that. Flying at full speed, he smashed his right shoulder into the sturdy, wooden bottom of the bridge in an attempt to knock the man from his feet for a second time. A wave of pain shot through his body, his shoulder bruising from the attack, but he maintained his flight. Distancing himself from the bridge and any counterattack the man might muster, he made his way to the end of the bridge, hoping to cut him off once more.

Let’s try this again.

[Christoph]

Even as Elijah ran toward freedom, he heard the rapidly approaching wing beats below. He cursed the dragon-man’s stubborn tenacity. Though the winged pursuer likely acted with righteous intentions, a fight seemed unfortunately unavoidable. Even the one honest, noble person he had met in his travels was out to get him.

The sorcerer risked a backward glance. Several Draconian guards had finally rushed onto the bridge. Despite the considerable gap between them, the guards reflected the urgency of his situation. He still couldn’t catch a glimpse of the dragon-man, but the flapping of wings grew nearer. He needed to get off the bridge quickly; getting lost in a strange city was preferable to being suspended over a terminal drop.

As if on cue, the bridge shook violently, jarred by a sudden impact from below. Elijah’s footing faltered and he stumbled, grabbing onto the ropes to avoid falling to his death. The bridge creaked and swayed dangerously. The sorcerer spotted the half-dragon in the distance, arcing toward the end of the bridge. The beast surely meant to intercept him again and prevent his escape. Elijah clenched his jaw in annoyance. With the guards closing in, he couldn’t afford a protracted confrontation with some community-minded annoyance.

He stood back up and quickly prepared another spell. Conventional knowledge stated that reaching a target with fire at such a long range would be nearly impossible, but such trivial limitations as reality could be overcome with will and imagination. He muttered a short arcane phrase, formed a vivid image in his mind’s eye, and called forth flame. It took the form of a fiery longbow, glowing and pulsing like a weapon of a god. An arrow of fire appeared in his hand.

He cleared his mind and blocked out all distractions; the swaying of the bridge and the footfalls of the approaching guards all faded. He ignored the heat pulsing from his conjured weapon. For that moment, he forced himself to actually believe that he notched a real arrow into a real bow; if that belief faded, natural law would reassert itself and his spell would fail. Centering his mind on this false belief, Elijah pulled back the fire bow’s imaginary string and let loose a flaming arrow at the half-dragon. It flew toward its airborne target in a streak of light, and burst into a cone of searing sparks.

With one last glance, Elijah resumed his sprinting escape. He hoped that if his attack didn’t cause blindness, it would be enough to deter the winged nuisance from further interference.

[Amaril Torrun]

Suddenly, a headache that had been nagging at Amaril's mind for several days exploded into a much higher degree of pain. Forgetting what he was doing, he dropped several feet in the air, feeling the tiny pricks of broken flame fall harmlessly onto his body. He began to cough up blood down his chin and into his hands and allowed himself to slowly drift to the ground far below. It was a dizzying feeling. Knowing that he might have been more capable to stop the criminal if he were in a better condition, he realized that at that moment, he needed to withdraw. It was a shame. It would have been one hell of a fight; one that a writer or two may have turned into one hell of a story some day.

((Yeah, my headaches may be something worse. Sorry mate.))

[Taskmienster]

Hey hey!

I’ll be taking this for you guys, and have it done soon. I’d like to say that I’m sorry it didn’t go further than it did, but it did go 6 posts, kinda. As the judge, I have the discretion to allow for exp or not, despite it not meeting the 10 post minimum. I’ll decide after I judge this if I’ll give out rewards, if I do it’ll be reduced probably by half. If you have questions or concerns just PM me and I’ll help if I can.

Amaril Torrun

Story [5/10]

Your opening post was really well done, you have a reason for being there, and a reason for engaging in a fight. Prove yourself, gain respect, and do what needs to be done.

Character [4.8/10]

Your opening showed a lot about your character, and it continued throughout through your actions. Dialogue was alright, but nothing unique.

Mechanics [5.2/10]

No real mistakes that I could see, maybe just a comma error here and there. Your writing was fine, but at times you slip into the same thing that Christoph did. It was almost like you were writing to have a post, but there was no feeling behind it.


Christoph

Story [4.8/10]

Like I note in mechanics, the story you were telling was somewhat lackluster. It was almost as if you gave the rough skeleton of a story, but never fleshed it out enough. Of course, in order to write all that would have fit well enough to make a true story would have taken a lot longer than just one post, but at the same time it was almost as if I was trying to watch the beginning of a movie, where they skipped through important stuff because they didn’t feel like writing out how the setting looked, any dialogue, and just wanted to get to the point.

Character [4.7/10]

I’d suggest putting more into the writing, this isn’t the strongest show I’ve seen from you and I KNOW you can do SO much better. I think the opening post made the rest of the posts seem a bit less dominant and powerful.

Mechanics [5/10]

Just a couple mechanical mistakes, though I would like to point out that the first post by you seemed a bit lackluster. It was almost as if you started out well, writing a good narrative, and then just kept going as if it was a slightly readable technical manual. It wasn’t bad, just nothing exciting or generally interesting to read.

Score ::

Amaril :: [15/30] ~ 50

Christoph :: [14.5/30] ~ 48

Outcome

Amaril :: Having withdrawn, you lose by your choice, sorry to see you go. I enjoy your writing and your grasp of character. However, I’m going to give out exp anyway. 2500 exp would have been what you’d have gotten should you have finished, however, due to the withdraw and the thread not meeting close to 10 posts, I’m going to reward you with 1000 exp for your trouble, as well as 200 gold.

Christoph :: Your opponent withdrew, so you’re in the clear and good to go. Welcome to the next round. I know y can write well, and I’d like to see that come out in the next round. . You would have received 750 exp for the loss, but I’m going to reward the same percentage of exp that I did with Amaril, so you get 300 exp and 100 gold.

[Taskmienster]

Exp and GP added!