Cormyr Story-2 (Closed)

[Alberdyne_Cormyr]

Though he'd calculated the maneuver quite carefully, the lighting in the environment, and his own speed compared to the other man's was lacking. His swinging blade came down first and then the boot, somehow, ended up connecting with the man's face. What is the deal with this place, didn't I just aim for his swords with my boot? Dyne shrugged the thoughts off to the side having little time to react to the object that was thrown in his general direction.

Swinging forward, the apprentice attempted to recapture his momentum. He'd been thrown off balance and only half-expected his opponent to throw some trick through the air. In the back of his mind he cursed once he felt the surge of energy come from his foe. Dyne's eyes widened as the man's nimbus cloud seemed to fluctuate for a brief moment. His movement slowed down as the other man reacted in a much faster capacity. Dyne felt the entire world stand still as lightning flickered about him from the monolith structures.

The other man's reaction time was simply far superior to Dyne's. Dyne had not noticed the man's conniving plot. As he worked to regain his moment against the other man's movements, time seemed to stop. Seconds passed as he had time to think about where he was actually going to place is shield. Be it a combination of the mysterious energies around this newly discovered environment, or the man's own secret power, Dyne saw the projectile as it was thrown at him. Oh shit! Dyne thought to himself as the object was nonchalantly tossed in his general direction.

With his shield coming to position, the youth saw his life flash before his eyes. Then it hit him, hard. Only his superior muscle mass and physique saved him from permanent harm. Feeling tremendous shock course through his stomach, the unarmored youth was hit easily by the man's projectile attack. Bending over in a slight hunch, the air was knocked completely out of Dyne's lungs. He was now open to any follow up attack that Cydnar might send his way...

[Cydnar]

Another roll of thunder touched the heavens, and I stood upright and fertile in a land of death and carnage. The quartz had sundered the man’s concentration, stayed the juggernaut’s mighty charge, and somehow, left me underfed and feeling somewhat more capable following a wave of self doubt. Freya, my first born and most treasured possession fell limply to touch the ground in a twinned motion with the blade in my other hand, all the fight went from me. How could I strike a man injured and incapable?

This was not the meaning of fighting, of combat, of living I had hoped to find. “Get up!”

“Get up damn you!”

I spun both the swords around in a delicate and overwrought blade dance, one which dropped my right knee and pushed my left leg back to brace any weight as I leant back slowly. Cradled in such a stance, I kept the blades moving and used their weaving motion to channel another spell, the words crackling off my tongue to gain power in the electrified ambience.

“I will not strike you injured, nor will I defend you once you are regained and well, show me the passion and the miter of man, show me why we fear your kind!”

Both blades crossed and sparked, and the spell erupted, scattering crystalline dust up and around into a volcanic column of artistic expression. It held its ground as a declaration of my mercy, or what selfish notions I perceived to be such. I waited for the boy to straighten his back and strike at me once more, knowing my stamina would not last, but my speed, a tool I now saw to be most valuable in the application of the dance like and arcane Salthias style, would need to persevere and perform one swift and deadly and simple death knell – I had to terminate this meeting before I was overcome.

[Alberdyne_Cormyr]

For some reason, the amplified shard of crystal energy impacted the youth more than its intended purposes perhaps. Time passed whilst the youth coughed and attempted to breath the dirty air. Realizing that his opponent was allowing him to recover Dyne saw an opening. Even a weakness. He used his analytical mind for cold accuracy and purpose. Dyne stood in a position that was close to the other man, and he was already prepared to counter-strike. When the man released his taunting maneuvers, Dyne felt disgusted at his foe.

Creeping closer, Dyne fell to the ground now. If I can just keep him distracted, keep up the act...maybe, I can pull a win out of here... Dyne did not have the sense of honor and nobility that Cydnar had. Dyne believed in winning no matter how ugly, or how unprofessional his tactics were. He learned one thing about The Citadel: there were foes that would absolutely obliterate you with sheer power. I cannot limit myself to Codes, or Honour. Such matters do not keep a warrior alive. Only the blade does.

Dyne continued to cough with a combination of breathing the dirty air in, attempting to regain his breath, and mere acting. He was exaggerating the situation by then, and he knew it. Even though that was the case, the youth had gotten close enough to the man to enact his plan. He'd arrived just a second or two after the man's impressive display of power. Taunting me...the son of a bitch is taunting me. I'll make you pay. I swear...

"I'll make you pay!" And Dyne attacked. It was a perfectly coordinated maneuver. As he coughed one last time, the youth suddenly grabbed his sword, and lunged upward with his right side. The maneuver was meant to disembowel the Elf with all the rage, brute strength, and passion that Dyne could muster. He aimed the tip of his sword right at the man's heart, his own face was twisted with a certain fury. Dyne lunged upward and stood up quickly, readying his shield for any sort of counter the man might bring.

"Die you bastard!" Dyne yelled and let out all his pent up rage in that one glorious moment.

[Cydnar]

So the blade did plunge, it's strength and fury crushing my feeble defences. His advance was so pain stricken and war torn, I could do nothing but feebly deflect the blow upwards. It struck the corner of the hematite hauberk that protected my torso, and shattered it with ease, like a needle piercing a haybale in the autumnal fields of a valley I've only heard or dreamt of.

With a thudder, the blade entered my shoulder and connected with flesh. I took a step back, the confused and dazed man slumped onto my chest, half hanging, half hoping for wings to lift him on high. I smiled, although it was a smile laced with pain and fury and need for revenge. Was this fighting, was this battle? An ontological search was a difficult one, to question and reason oneself in such a manner is a paradox waiting to happen, waiting to sunder the mind.

A third cavalcade of lightning errupted overhead and for a moment, I stared into the man's eyes. He moved, and the pain jolted down my spine. My left arm, now imapled fell limp, and Freya fell like a moonlit star to the scorched earth.

"Death?

There is no glory in death human.

Héten nlyoth lórygú sïen nówingcí hénwó ótén ïeden!"

With a resurgent and last defiant push, I placed my free hand onto the man's right shoulder and pushed him free from my immediate vicinity. As he stumbled backwards, leaving his blade impaled into my shoulder, I brought about the long forgotten twin to the mistress of the stars and cut upwards across his chest diagonally. Then stepped sideways and spun around; the movement gave momentum to the blade as it spiralled around away and back, I lunged and brought it full speed with feline grace into the general region of the man's shoulder - an eye for an eye meaning literal retaliation. Two strikes that could tear a ghoul asunder, two strikes that carried behind them all the hopes of my people for the days ahead.

The lightning crackled, Yrene's monoliths hummed, had I finally earnt the World Eater's blessing?

The only glory is knowing WHEN to die!

[Alberdyne_Cormyr]

For a moment, he lost the comforting feeling of his weapon's handle. As he was pushed, Dyne's hand reached out for the weapon once more and he did catch it. With his nature as a street-fighter, the youth wanted to inflict as much harm to his opponent as he possibly could. Dyne knew he had even the slightest chance of winning the match. For that to occur, he had to capitalize on every mistake his enemy made. Whilst gripping the handle of his weapon Dyne, knew the end was near. Just give me a few more seconds, please! That's all I ask.

Just as the man pushed Dyne away, Dyne pushed on his weapon. He quickly shoved forward, and and then, with the same sliding movement, he yelled as he made an attempt to pull his weapon right out of the man's shoulder to increase the deadly wound he'd inflicted upon him.

Once Dyne's weapon was freed of the prison called the body, the other man was already moving with his counter attack. There was nothing, due to the proximity of the attack, that Dyne could do to avoid the attack. Instead, the youth attempted to shift his powerful body weight to a slight angle, so that when the sword came, the attack was not lethal. His foe's sword slashed at a perfect angle cutting through his feeble clothing.

Dyne saw the second attack coming. Already bleeding from the horrible gash across his chest, Dyne was already locked in his current position. The man's strike moved like a cobra snatching a rodent towards its imminent demise. Feeling his face cringe as the sword bit him once more, the strike disabled his arm. Blood flowed freely from the multiple gashes on his body, but the youth managed to hold onto the conscious realm of the Firmanent.

The strikes would have destroyed a lesser man. But, Dyne, a natural street fighter, was well prepared to micromanage such damaging blows. Moving his sword arm now, the youth prepared to take out the second arm of his opponent with a simple downward slash towards the middle section of the extended arm. A few simple movements had saved the bleeding man from certain crippling blows. The strikes were non-lethal, but one of his arms had been disabled, and it was his shield-arm. The shield fell to the ground, useless. Dyne's counter-strike was meant to sever the other man's arm into two clean pieces. After that, Dyne could do no more and would be vulnerable to the point of accepting his fate in the match.

Blood sprayed everywhere.

[Cydnar]

The guttural cut of his blade made Cydnar reel in the emotional splurge that cut his efforts short. Altogether too quickly the man had braced for the impact of his decisive and bi-lateral strike. The blood dripped down the blade at first, and Freya sang a Valkyrie song for the deeper enthrallment in death.

Dyne's sword pulled, wrenched and quickly came down with a last and bitter counter attack. Too concerned with the retraction of his weapon, the otherwise nimble Hummel gritted his teeth and felt the metal shatter the hematite bracer he relied upon for protection and strike a chord upon his arm. The pain transcended expectation and rocketed up his muscles into his shoulder; for a brief moment, he felt the pain of his earlier wound ascend to a new peak, then drop into lethargy.

"Hïtsë..."

He looked down as time slower, his sword in Dyne's side, and Dyne's sword in embedded in the quarry of fragments and bone shards. The force had shattered the upper side of the ancient armour, cut through his arm and fractured the bone, although the bloody mess hid the fact well.

Dyne fell, and so did Cydnar, one man to his doom and to a prone and everlasting night, the Hummel to his knees, exasperated and demanding the cold and calculated reprieve of the Citadel's healers. That, above all, was the greatest comfort.

The lightning about them crackled furiously, gathering above Cydnar's head in a maelstrom of effervescence. He looked up, and the last words he'd spoken echoed in between the pronged energy storm. He smiled, Dyne had known the right moment, and through that futile acceptance of a man's fate, he'd delivered a gambit. Dyne may have been the one to die, but it was Cydnar who'd been defeated and broken.

"All this searching for the unending answer, when all along it was the cut and thrust of a sword or wrenching swing of an axe that was the question," he chuckled.

He slumped further still until his gave way and slipped into abyssal night. As unconciousness struck, the monoliths and blackened obsidian that made up the requested arena slowly broke away from reality, rock and lightning falling upwards into the azure sky. The arena re-appeared, a cold and sandy brandistock blow delivered to the expecations of two more combatants in an eternal ocean of war.

The great doors swung open with a heavenly rattle, and through the dark opening the monks came, as they always did, like angels carrying the fallen to the realm beyond realms.

The thunder errupted and trailed away, the storm carried on elsewhere.

Shit

Spoils:

Ragnarok: A simple sword technique combining a quartz sphere attack concealed behind Cydnar's back or terrain and a spiralling double strike from a single blade and sheathe, or from both his blades. At present, strikes at normal strength and speed, but consumes two alloted uses of the crystal sphere as it gives surprise and the aid of striking twice at once. His aim with the sphere using this technique is one level lower than his current skill as written under the Crystalline ability.

[Visla Eraclaire]

A quick judgment was requested and I'm sorry that it wasn't quick. It will be brief. Questions may be addressed to me via PM or aim.

Alberdyne_Cormyr

Continuity 5
Setting 8
Pacing 4
Dialogue 7
Action 8
Persona 5
Technique 5
Mechanics 8
Clarity 5
Wild Card 5

Final Score 60

Cydnar Yrene
Continuity 4
Setting 7
Pacing 5
Dialogue 7
Action 3
Persona 3
Technique 3
Mechanics 3
Clarity 3
Wild Card 7

Final Score 45

Alberdyne_Cormyr wins, gains 525 exp, 50 gp.

Cydnar Yrene gains 100 exp, 25 gp.

[Taskmienster]

Exp and GP added.