CAF training: first fight

[Red Dawn]

The Citadel offered something that Dale Russell had never seen, a magical means of transporting people anywhere they could imagine – or the monks could imagine – and the ability to never die. Within the walls of the massive building there was the promise of immortality to those that chose to fight. The idea of never dying was impossible to overlook by many who came for fame and fortune, to test their mettle, or to settle scores against another combatant. Still others came to the Citadel for other reason. Like Dale Russell, who had come because he was ordered to by the Corone Armed Forces, others unhappily entered the halls or listlessly wandered and waited for a room to become available.

The android known as Dale Russell had completed basic training less than a week ago for the Empire’s military, and had proven quite unable to wield a sword or spear effectively. It had been bad enough that his tests with those weapons were repeated multiple times before he was allowed to pass, reluctantly, by the head drill sergeant. He assumed it was a mix of being tired of dealing with him testing, as much as it was his skills in other areas. Unfortunately, just because he passed the trials of training did not mean he was done attempting to use the weapons of the Corone Armed Forces line soldier. Issued with a standard guard uniform, a shield and whatever sword they could find lying around the man entered the room and let the illusions of the Ai’bron monks overtake him.

As soon as the door shut behind him the light faded and the illusion of immortality began.

He was standing on the soft green grass of a foreign world. All around him the light breeze of salted wind swirled past. It gave a low whistle as it passed across the small island, changing course when it encountered the rocky beach and the lone ruins inhabiting the center. One wall of what looked like a long abandoned outpost, fashioned to be a fort all its own, had fallen into ruin as the lichen grew across the other four walls. Broken stairways ran along the walls from the bottom, scattered with large fallen bricks, to the third floor which would have served as a roof and lookout point. The hazy, gray sky overhead hung heavily with the weight of coming rains. Its laden clouds were ominously drifting lazily as if waiting for permission to drop their load on the world below.

Dale sighed and pushed against the thin steel breastplate embedded between layers of leather on his chest, which caused the mirror of it to move across his back. He was not used to the way armor felt, having never worn it before the military enlisted him. It felt clumsy, as did the set of iron bracers and the small iron heater shield in his hand. Thankfully they did not require him to bring a spear or halberd, since both had proven to be nothing more than a way to hit his own head with the backend while using. Instead his standard issue cavalry sword was resting in its scabbard, and instantly the android missed his hatchet that they had replaced with the weapon.

“Guess this is as good as any other place,” he muttered as he lit a cigarette and took a long drag. He was a long way from home, a planet in some unknown corner of the galaxy called Earth. This place, however, was something he could get used to. Althanas had plenty to explore, and without the threat of nuclear inhalation to wipe out all life it was one that would see far less mornings that had created his nickname ‘red dawn’.



((Open to someone I haven’t fought before – Duffy – feel free to jump in if you’re interested. The changes from my profile to what I have typed reflects my entrance in and change due to the CAF. The CAF have taken his hatchet and given him a steel cavalry saber and steel scabbard for it. They took his leather duster and gave him a guard's uniform, long leather trench-coat with thin steel plates sewn into the chest and back between the layers. They issued him a small iron heater shield without any paint or logo on it, as well as a pair of iron bracers with the symbol of the CAF embossed into them. Also, a pair of overlapping leather greaves that go from iron overlapped boots to knee. He still has his bowie knife, 2 hand crossbows, two belts with crossbow holsters, small quiver of 10 bolts, and cowboy hat. These changes will be requested at the end for spoils in order to be made permanent.))

[Itera]

There was something else that the Citadel monks offered: a unique blend of ginger tea that warmed the blood and was supposedly good for the complexion. Therefore, the main difference between this and desperate combat was that the monks did not offer it unless you knew to ask. Half a pot of it rested with Itera now, the remnants from a delicious elevenses. Itera rested on a squared stone just the right size for elegant reclining. The stone rested atop the broken stub of a stairway to the roof. The roof, save for that little uncollapsed part, rested mostly in rotting pieces on the ground.

Unlike the usual sort of ambushers, she hadn't seen him come in. She wasn't even assigned to this room for a fight. One might be tempted to continue and say that she wasn't looking for a fight, but anyone who knew anything about the fairies of Tenger Jerhal would instantly note that to be hilariously wrong. After all, a high-velocity chicken was considered a proper greeting.

It was the smoke that alerted her via her delicate nose. The smell instantly spoiled her placid mood of contemplating the boundless sea (apparently bounded, but the boundary keeps moving), the abyssal sky (like a bottomless pit, but upside-down), and the warm tea (mmm... ginger). Who dares intrude upon her? Never mind that she had more or less flipped through chambers and picked one to gap into. Never mind that she had entirely bypass the whole talk-with-the-monks inconvenience after getting her tea. She was here first and she intended to defend her claim to someone else's death.

Itera looked down. Dale, hearing the commotion, looked up.

"Good morning~!" She said, in her suspiciously friendly idiom, complete with twinkling of eye and dimpling of cheek and everything that went with one's general impression of mischevious fairies, "Have some tea!"

Then she dropped the teapot over the edge at his head.

[Red Dawn]

Dale was beginning to enjoy the Citadel’s uniqueness and the illusionary environment that had been created. All his senses were being gently caressed on all fronts. Since arriving on Althanas, waking within the depths of Concordia, the android’s functions were diminished from standard operational standards. All physical attributes had been reduced to almost negligible, leaving him almost as weak as a normal human. His senses were heightened slightly more than a human though, and those were taking in new experiences with every passing day. Althanas was not the dead planet Earth he had left behind, it was vibrant and alive and Dale absorbed every passing nuance.

The light scratching of movement caused the androids black eyes to turn to the sound. They locked immediately on the intruder. Attempting to justify why a little girl was present within the Citadel, much less his assigned chamber for combat, was something that Dale had trouble with. He was staring into the golden-red eyes of the perched opponent – for lack of a better word – and simply smirked. The cigarette dropped ash into the gentle wind even as he took another pull. She seemed oddly out of place, but the android gave it only a minor consideration. If she was there, she was there, and despite hating to have to fight women he was commanded to practice his swordsmanship on whoever appeared.

“Good morning?” She seemed amiable enough, but the falling tea-pot was aimed well and directed for Dale’s head. The inconvenience was put aside with the flat of his shield. As it collided he could hear the shattering of the pot and feel the heat from the liquid be absorbed by the metal. It smelled strongly of ginger, even as it dripped from his shield to the ground below. He let his arm hang and shook his head, removing the cig from his lips and speaking through a cloud of smoke. “That was rude.”

With a quick hand he slipped the crossbow from its sheath. Years of fighting with guns on Earth had given him the twitchy finger that most gunslingers of the ancient west would be jealous of. It was that skill that brought the point of the bolt level with the woman and shot so suddenly that the crossbow itself had barely stopped moving. He listened to the twang of the tensed strings release, the whisper of the twirling bolt as it suddenly lurched forward against the light wind. The smirk that accompanied the feeling of fighting was irrestistable.

[Itera]

The quarrel, if it had feelings, was disconcerted when it met no resistance as it went through Itera's face. It wasn't anything like what was expected of hitting flesh and bone with a fast-moving bit of metal and wood. The quarrel, if it had eyes, was even more disconcerted when everything went strange around it. One moment it was sailing through the illusions of the Citadel and the next moment it was sailing through a black-purplish void with a truly disconcerting amount of distance to it, along with unblinking red eyes scattered in every direction. A single heartbeat had passed since the bowstrings thrummed.

Itera finished blinking and shrank down her reflexively-opened pocket gap. That was the single most violent response that she had ever seen to anyone being offered a beverage and nearly as expeditiously violent as one performed some time ago by a certain anemic-looking fellow when offered fresh, hot garlic bread. People of this world were strange; what was so objectionable about nice tea?

The tea!

"Uncalled for!" Itera stood and raised an accusatory finger towards her quarry, "Meanie! Blasphemer of the tea! Wearer of trousers! In the name of the tea, I will punish you!"

"Hey old bald people!" She yelled, ambling away from the inner edge of the wall towards the opposite edge, "Shiny-headed wrinkle-faces! There's a guy in here and he just took all my tea! Are you gonna do something about it or what?!"

A purple-rimmed little gap two inches across slid silently across the ground below, towards that ideal spot between Dale's legs. On the other side, a quarrel sped through the void.

[Red Dawn]

The bolt, so accurately aimed and positioned for a lethal opening shot, sped through the air. The twirling field-point head of the projectile glinted even in the faded light slipping through thick clouds. Its silent battle-cry was barely audible to the android, but he watched its path and listened to its whispers. The impressive shot stretched to reach the woman’s face before a small glimmer absorbed it. Within a split second it disappeared and the quick, unsatisfying victory was lost. Dale lowered an eyebrow with what little disbelief he could muster. Althanas had a very strange sort of population, each one being touched by the mysterious fragmented Tap. The pulsing, broken flow of magic reached out in thousands of different ways to embrace anyone willing to use it. Since learning of this, as well as seeing many things since he had crashed on the planet, the missing bolt and unharmed woman were hardly noteworthy occurrences.

Dale let a bubble comprised of condensed magic surround him. The gravitational properties of the invisible shield stopped the wind from rustling through his clothes or against the hair on his neck. The world became still. It was an odd feeling being within something he could not see or touch, yet feeling its effects just as he could a breeze. He eyed the strange woman and listen to her ramble, but concentrated on the manipulation of gravity. The edges of his long coat pushed away from his body slightly as if floating.

“They won’t help you,” he smiled and switched the shield from his right arm to his left. His fingers were itching to draw the second crossbow and let loose another shot. It was obvious though that the first was either swallowed into nothingness, had been destroyed, or was simply hovering out of sight waiting to be used against him. The conclusions were easy to draw upon when the multi-linear thought process of the bio-mechanical brain was put to use questioning previous knowledge and experience with personal supposition. Even at half efficiency, the rest of his mind focused on his defenses, he was able to bring up a number of possibilities. “How about you come down from there and we settle this the way the Citadel was meant to be used?”

[Itera]

She paused, the rambling imprecations towards the undeserving monks yielding in an instant to a sort of silence that grinned. Her next words were impossibly drawled out and spoke volumes about lung capacity and voice control, "Meant~~~ to be used~~~?"

Itera retraced the few steps back towards the ledge. She had retrieved a folding-fan from somewhere and now held it in front of most of her face, leaving just golden eyes glittering down - not dangerously, but rather dreamily and disappointedly. Her voice carried well on the wind, "This world and everything in it are illusions that exist solely to please the senses. The deaf, the blind, and the dull - especially the dull - can't appreciate the small things of the world, which are each as big as the world."

She strolled slowly towards the broken stairwell, each of her bootfalls a measured thump. Her speech, also, was dealt out carefully measured, "Look at this place. Look. At. It. Each brick was made by someone's hand, placed by someone's hand, mortared by someone's hand. Whose? How many sunrises has it seen? What is it like to be a brick, silently spending the years in the close company of brothers? There is so much to one brick and here there are thousands of bricks."

She reached the stairwell and, with one white-gloved hand, stroked the rotting wooden rail, "Each blade of grass, unique in its shape, its place, and its color, has countless generations of ancestors. Each plank, unique in its knots, its place, and its grain, has craftsmen and a tree, following countless generations of craftsmen and trees. The mind of the dull are narrow and shallow; that is why they see only a blade of grass. A wooden plank. A person. A world."

"Purpose? A world is not for a purpose, not even that of the creator. It exists. It exists to exist. Even if it is illusory. Even if it was created this morning. I watched the clouds drifting by overhead and wondered at the nature of spirals. I smelled the sea's shattered arms as it pounded the land again and again and reflected on apparent futility. I heard the grass and the wind whisper to one another and pondered the messages. I tasted the hot tea against the cool cup's lip and considered the nature of complementary opposites."

WHUSHhhh

A badly-aimed quarrel passed more than a foot in front of Dale's face, slipping out suddenly through the tiny, transient gap near his feet and crossing the thickness of his barrier twice. It wobbled away skywards. Itera looked amused and, for the first time, interested.

"Beauty. It is all beauty. Since you had so thoroughly spilled my tea, let's see what I can spill!"

The fan clacked shut. A purple lined gap appeared in front of Itera, almost as tall as her and at least twice as wide. It was filled with unblinking, staring red eyes and a sense of so much distance that it strained more organic eyes. A loud, whistling roar was audible.

"World's Treasure: Katabatic!"

(OOC: Itera has opened a gap whose other end is at the end of a long, steep, high alpine valley. Fierce, cold winds (katabatic winds) blast through it.)

[Red Dawn]

Just a note: your ability, Boundary of Here and There, is what I’m assuming that you are using in order to open a rift between yourself and Dale. This split is coming from a place that is nowhere near you visually, which is required. Or, you meant a place you can visualize in your head with full concentration after a minute, which you couldn’t have had with your monologue and concentrating on opening portals for the bolt to have passed through. It’s borderline powergaming.

While the woman waxed philosophically, and nonsensically, Dale kept his silence. He was beginning to realize what a fool’s errand his visit to the Citadel had become. Before him was a woman – already a situation he did not enjoy – with a fair amount of delirium or intoxication obviously rattling her brain. He tugged on his cigarette and let the smoke roll from between his pursed lips. If there was anything about his features that spoke volumes it was to his indifference. “I don’t give a –“

The bolt suddenly arrived through a portal at his feet and launched itself upwards. Dale stopped midsentence. Words of rebuke lingered on his tongue. He could feel the weight of the quarrel tap against the light barrier of gravity, barely deflecting the tip away. It careened towards the sky, and with it his concentration lapped. Clenched lips forced ash and the tip of the cigarette dropped from its butt. Dale pinched the dead stick with his fingers and flicked it towards the ground.

“Now what?!” The android dug in his feet and removed the only remaining crossbow loaded. He aimed it at the woman, but she was fading behind something new quickly. The amethyst sliver grew rapidly. It opened like a clam shell to expose the chaos. Eyes of malice pierced through the depths of the pure darkness within the rift. They met the black eyes of the android and Dale held his resolve peering back. The sharp winds blasted the soldier, forcing him to take two steps back to regain his footing.

Arctic winds wrapped around him, flowing through his clothes. The breastplate on his chest began to feel unnaturally cold against the thin shirt beneath, through the leather. He reset his feet and pushed off of them, darting to the side to get around the rift. As soon as he moved past the far edge the sharp, pure winds were replaced by a humid gust. Clouds were slowly moving towards the ruins, but they had taken on a less laden appearance. Dale pulled his attention back to the woman and continued running. He had to put the wall of the ruins between them. The opportunity to get behind the cover of the building came as he lunged for a corner to hide behind. “What. The. Hell.”