Round 2: Ataraxis vs. Culix

[Ther]

This match will continue until 12:00 A.M. E.S.T. on March 17th. Good luck!

[Ataraxis]

Agh, I'm sorry for bogging this thread down. Had a hard time getting words out, and it ended being way too long, and well, kinda blah. Well, at least we can finally start, I guess. Sorry again!

“Augh, this is just my day!” Lillian griped through clenched teeth, bitter tears brimming at the well of her eyes. She gave her left shoulder palpatory taps, where the pain had sparked without so much as a warning; it had come so brusquely that her arm had gone limp, as though deprived of both bone and sinew, and had dropped in loud clonks what books she had been perusing on the inlaid floor of the Radasanthian Library. At the sight of the stained bandages, a shudder overtook her as she recalled the argent streaks of a deadly punching dagger flashing before her helpless eyes, snaking under the command of a gaunt-faced man, painfully sinking its fangs into her flesh as if it were paper. The young girl made a spiteful face at the vivid memory of the attack, but she was forced to admit that the rest of the encounter was, to her remembrance, blurry at best.

‘But didn't he carry me to a healer afterwards?’ Frustration now marred her pale face; not only did she fail to grasp what logic lay behind her assailant’s change of heart, but her memory of the ordeal was nothing but a jumbled puzzle of many missing pieces. ‘If I do see him again, though, the gloves are off! Lillian Sesthal does not pull her punches... twice!’ Feeling a righteous rage pumping through her blood, she flailed her arms with childish verve, mimicking the jabs and feints of an epileptic prizefighter. It wasn’t long before she crumbled in a mess of hurt, cringing from the dumbly rekindled fires of her injury. “For the love of…!”

As an answer to the shushing of a young librarian, Lillian retaliated with a grace and eloquence observed only in crews of foul-mouthed and peg-legged pirates, shouting a slew of derisory invectives that rose whimpers and wails from the tenderfoot, who scampered off into some vacant corridor to cry away his mortification. ‘Good going. What is your problem?’ she berated herself mentally for her explicit lack of tact. Lillian knew the poor boy was only upholding his duties – after all, she had been in the same line of work for years. ‘And you could have done without disparaging his masculinity, couldn't you?’

It was easy for her to blame how madly young the day still was, having never been a morning lark; or to hold her shoulder wound accountable for her less than amenable behavior, always complaining about how bothersome it was to anoint and dress it ever day; she even went as far as blaming corporations and bureaucracy for all the ills of her existence, spouting some nonsense about governmental conspiracies and the such. In truth, however, her ill temper was due entirely to the fact that, for well over an hour, she had rummaged around countless bookcases, browsed through numerous book catalogs and consulted five different reference librarians, all to find one, singular book. ‘And all that to no avail,’ she grimly added with a sigh as she drew herself to a stand.

::::::::::::::


[I]‘The Unseen Nexus, dubbed by cryptanalysts as the ultimate guide to otherwise unattainable knowledge; those who had procured themselves one of the rare copies of this book were never able to make sense of it, because it was written entirely in a never before seen type of cipher. History tells a forgotten ruler, fearing that the contents of the book would one day be used to threaten his dominion, had ordered a purge of all publications, burning the books at the stake along with their owners...' But Lillian knew this to be fallacious. In Ankhas, the fabled library of Ettermire, she had chanced upon crucial information which told of a few surviving copies of the Nexus, secured somewhere in Radasanth – somewhere in its library, to be exact, where they are expected to be and never found.

“To those who now seek as I had once sought
For wonders and secrets, given and bought:
Amidst their brethren, the Nexus were left
In tawdry guise and the city of theft.”

‘The old ‘hide a tree in a forest’ trick,’ Lillian said, grinning with admiration as she recited the passage she had long since committed to memory. The verses were clear, though one required detailed knowledge of the author’s disdain for Radasanth as a haven of crime and pickpockets. 'Pity that the information is over two hundred years old, though. For all I know, they could have been hidden as children’s books, and are currently lost in an abandoned attic, at the bottom of some padlocked toy box.’ The notion was disheartening, but she knew it to be very unlikely – after all, these were monumental bricks of intellectual proportions that she was dealing with, and no child would ever want to read something that, if dropped, could potentially squash it like a mere gnat. No, Lillian would not let her hopes falter. If she kept her search thorough, clues were bound to cross her path.

“I frankly expected more of this place, you know?” She was startled by the sudden break of silence, but now that the initial surprise had gone, she was left with an overwhelming curiosity. Pressing the side of her head against a row of linguistic books, she eavesdropped on a strange confabulation. “People said that almost all genres could be found here, but I haven’t seen even one of those bawdy novels yet!” Lillian made a disgusted moue: he was another reader of those harlequin novels. This was hardly anything to get excited over, Lillian thought, but as she was about to lose all interest in the conversation, the other had spoken.

“You should try those cult libraries if you’re looking for such particular genres,” a female voice had declared, stymieing a giddy laugh at her companion’s words. “Places like this wouldn’t allow such insipid pieces to leave their establishments, let alone enter them. I heard of a great place called ‘Bawdy Barry’: it stores all those bizarre books that usually never get published because no one takes them seriously! I’m sure you’ll find those naughty books in there, dear,” the woman ended in a low murmur, giggling once more.

And there she was, idle in enlightenment, watching the pieces fit as they fell away. ‘Of course! Why did I jump to the conclusion that it had to be this library? But still, it’s brilliant! Don’t just hide the tree in a forest; hide it in a pathetic forest as a pathetic tree!’ In the impetus of this epiphany, Lillian had forgotten her place. Breaking through the stack before her, she weaved her way to the other side of the shelf, letting Salvic-Elven dictionaries and various thesauri crash into the flooring as she wriggled through. “Excuse me! Could you tell me where I can find this ‘Bawdy Barry’ place?” she inquired as her dollish head poked through the other side. “I need to- oh my!”

“What in the nine hells? Get out of here!” Lillian’s cheeks were redder than beets, having barged in the middle of a very… private moment. ‘That would explain why they stopped talking for a while,’ Lillian thought briskly as she gawked widely, unable to break her rude and somewhat intrigued stare.

“It’s on the south end of the thoroughfare; it sticks out like a sore thumb! Now would you please just go?” the woman hollered in the throes of embarrassment, and well, something else. Broken from her daze, Lillian bobbed her head as a frenetic nod and disappeared down the ‘hole’ she had burrowed, uttering a flurry of apologies that went on even after she had stepped through the egress of the Library.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to stare! I’m sorry! Please forgive me! I’m sorry…”

::::::::::::::

The woman had resorted to no euphemism when she had said the library would stick out, though a thumb was not exactly the most accurate depiction of what she was now seeing. ‘No wonder it’s called ‘Bawdy Barry’…’ Lillian thought sheepishly as she averted her eyes, having seen one too many a genitalia this day. The theme of human copulation had never taken much space in her mind, if any at all, but whenever such mishaps occurred, it was surprisingly hard for the sixteen year old girl to clear her thoughts and regain even a smidgeon of her habitual composure. ‘Focus on the book, focus on the book…’ she recited inexorably in her mind, the nigh religious mantra purging her psyche as best it could. Prepared for the worst, she pushed the door and stepped over the sill, breathing in the noisome dankness of the lieu as an orchestra of little bells tinkled overhead. ‘Well that’s not a good sign…’

“Can I help you, lass?” came the grunt from the back of the counter, its source the short, buxom man that considered her with dark, almost glassy eyes. Before answering, Lillian shot furtive glances to her surroundings, and what had struck her first was the homely aspect of the library, a hundred times less lofty than what she was used to and definitely less than ill-kempt to her standards. The labels were even worse. ‘Young Romance, Harlequin, Sultry… Hardcore?’

“Uhm, yes… I’m looking for a book.” The look the proprietor had given her was self-explanative, making her flush with discomfiture. “I mean, yes, of course I’m looking for a book, but not this kind of book!’ Discerning from the bristling of his eyebrows that he was itching to say something along the lines of ‘then what are you doing wasting my time’, Lillian went on, trying not to sink any further into the allegorical pit she had hitherto dug. “Do you have in store a book that’s utterly incomprehensible and that has nothing to do with… well, this kind of literature?” If his reply was negative, then she would move on to another shady establishment, but she half-hoped that her search would end here – she wasn’t quite enthused at the prospect of seeing any more vulgar displays of promiscuity and any other decadent offshoot of a respectable library.

His expression had changed from annoyed to amused: why, though, was something the girl couldn’t quite grasp. “Why don’t you just look around? If you’re any smart, you might find just what you need.” His stout arm swooped across the room, signaling that she was free to look around as she wished. From the crooked smirk under his brush-like moustache, however, Lillian felt that he knew more, much more than he was letting on. ‘Alright, I’ll take on this little test of yours.’

Her first assumption was that the book could not be anywhere near the new releases, and was most probably concealed in an old dusty stack, strewn about somewhere in a musty aisle. ‘The book is bicentennial, and from the shoddy looks of this place, it wouldn’t be farfetched to estimate just about that much time of… service. Everything correlates: now, to see if there is causation…’ Ambling through the library, she randomly chose a rather dismal row of shelves, in the far back. There, she began the arduous task of skimming through the titles inscribed on hundreds and hundreds of book spines, starting from her feet and slowly, boggingly working her way up. ‘The Mistress o’ Nine Tails… it wouldn’t be a wild guess if I assumed it involved a good deal of whipping…’ Up. ‘The Night of a Thousand and One Groans… Disgusting much?’ Up again. ‘The One-Eyed Piratess? I don’t get it… and I don’t think I want to.’ Lillian was now poised on her toes, her neck craned back so much that it hurt. ‘It’s so far up… it’s hard to read… The In… Invisible Boons… Bonds! The Invisible Bonds of Love?’

“That’s it! There’s the Unseen Nexus!” Such an outcry of joy! The owner of the ‘Bawdy Barry’ – Barry, she assumed – must have thought she was oblivious to the definition of a nexus, and that even if she did put her hands on the copy, she would never establish the connection. ‘Well I showed him, didn’t I?’ In a surge of pride that bloated her ego, however, Lillian had not thought of how she would reach the object of her desire; but she was quickly reminded of how dismally short she was. ‘Shoot. Is there a ladder anywhere? Ah, there’s no time to look for one! It’s right in front of me!’

Was it the blood of adventurers that had compelled her into the asinine and utterly senseless? Or perhaps she had gone daft with delight because the fabled repository of all knowledge, worldly and otherworldly, was precariously perched right over her head? Whatever the case, it would not detract from the fact that, in the protruding shelves, she had seen rocky ledges and in the lewd novels, faulty leverage. In the perfect likeness of a cragswoman, Lillian climbe the bookcases, clambering for steady grip after steady grip, already huffing akin to a mountaineer in high altitudes. “You’ve caused me a lot of trouble, my friend! But now, you’re going to come with me!”

[Culix]

"Civilization!" All nearby Radasanth citizens turned at the declaration to stare at the newcomer, a small boy. After seeing the purple-haired child with his arms thrust skyward, a bauble-topped staff clutched in one hand, they went back to their tasks; with the number of larger than life figures the city's taverns attracted, they felt certain a real spectacle would be along shortly, and that they should hoard their gawking time until then. On any other day, the lad would have become very unhappy with the citygoers for the perceived slight. Then again, on any other day, he might have entered with enough of a flourish to give the spectacle they wanted. The reason neither applied was simple: the child had decided to take the day off from his mission of world conquest.

Taking over the world might seem to have very little to do with becoming irritated when ignored by others, or putting on a dog and pony show when new to an area, but both were fundamental in Jannin's mind. He had studied villains from both works of fiction and historical biographies, and had developed a peculiar worldview; while most people preached substance over style, the young mage had somehow equated the two. So, he tried his hardest to meet all the criteria of most evil beings, believing the power they held would result. Jannin's most recent self-ascribed task was artifact-hunting: Whether a staff that wipes countries off the map, or a glowy orb thing that gives godhood, ya've gotta have your items of power.

It was this pursuit, or the difficulties he found in it, anyway, that led him to take a break. Because the vast majority of legendary items he had in mind had been pilfered or destroyed long before his grandparent's births, the boy was having trouble finding any. He'd been forced to lower his standards and search for lesser relics, hoping to work his way up, but even there found trouble. For instance, after a slew of failures, the mage had braved the not-overly-dangerous perils of an ancient cave for a bell that... did something remotely interesting, he knew. As he had reached for it, the "instrument" had grown wings, fluttered out of reach, announced in an overly cutesy voice, "A loser is you!" before vanishing with a wop. This episode put an end to Jannin's suspicions, and absolutely convinced him the universe was mocking him. However, the young man had beliefs about the universe: It's really, really old, kinda like... that fossil at the scho-- Mr. Bresden! So, just like with Mr. Bresden, if it's not happy with me, I've just gotta lay off what made it angry until it forgets. And, since it's... a million times as old as Mr. Bresden, I'd give it a day. I could use a vacation, anyway. So, Jannin decided to spend his holiday curled up with a new book.

Which brought him to Radasanth. Eventually. The boy had thought he would simply go for the first nice-looking tome he found, but the few towns he passed on his way -- apparently deciding the time leading up to his vacation could be counted in the one day off -- had not even a half-literate soul amongst them, much less a library. But Radasanth... The biggest city in Corone had better have a lotta books. Books of the finest caliber and substance. And Corone certainly did have such volumes. Just not in the place Jannin first approached.

"Huh... That's an interesting tower design," he observed of the sign's image. "'Bawdy Barry'..." The dictionary of his mind flipped through the B's, but came up empty-handed. However, a few quick checks through the mind's thesaurus brought him from 'bawdy' to 'erotic' from 'erotic' to 'titillating,' and finally from there to 'charming.' Wow. A Class 3 thesaurus search for that one. Jannin smiled. A shop that uses a word like that must have something worth my while, he decided with a nod, before hurrying inside, indicating his thoughts on definitions were just as unorthodox as his takes on the universe, and on style and substance.

Once Jannin saw the interior, however, he began to have his doubts. It wasn't so much the dingy look of the library that put him off, though it did start his frown, or even the unpleasant smell he couldn't place, so much as the other patrons. Something about the way three of the four had wrapped cloaks tightly around themselves, as though to conceal their identities, and cast suspicious looks left and right didn't fill him with confidence. You shouldn't be here unless you're planning on enjoying the reading. The boy began to reconsider when he saw the look of manic glee in the eyes of the other shelf-browser, who even went so far as to lick his lips in anticipation as he plucked a particularly sultry novel from its perch. Honest ta... Show some restraint! It's a book, not a ham sandwich!

Meanwhile, Barry, the plump owner behind the main desk, slowly dealt with his conundrum. Even if they have no idea how to dress their kid, those clothes mean money; if the little man's getting interested in these topics at his age, I could have a long, profitable venture ahead of me. Then again... The Guard's been warning me to keep my nose a little cleaner than the shop. So, if I'm found helping adult books into the hands of someone who's clearly no adult... Ooh... What to do?

Just as Jannin was about to leave and Barry was about to take a chance, a woman gave a joyful shout. This was a common occurence; after all, given what Lillian had seen at a reputable library, one could only imagine the sort of things that went on at a place called 'Bawdy Barry.' Few people so much as batted an eye. Jannin, however, paid more attention to the cry's content; it jarred a memory loose. The Unseen Nexus... Is that... Yeah, Dr. Bresden was lookin' for it! Huh... And he always said it was in a big clock at a brothel in Alerar. Whatever a brothel is... Anyway, if half the other things he said were true... The young mage chuckled. If I knew taking a day off would be this rewarding, I'd have never started working!

His cheer renewed, Jannin began making his way toward the sound of success. Barry, once he saw the boy moving toward Lillian's location, finally decided on a move: He just came in here looking for his sister who's definitely of age. Whatever happens, that's what the Guard'll be hearing. As the happy 'little brother' weaved his way around bookcase after bookcase of off-color titles, that he was approaching the sound of someone else's success, a someone else who might be reluctant to let a find like the Unseen Nexus go so easily, simply didn't occur to him. Of course, had it, the lad would have decided it might be a moot point, anyway, as he discovered that the shelf he'd seen swaying slightly was being scaled by a raven-haired young woman. She looked far more confident in the shelf than he did. Wait... She... Two and two finally made four in the boy's head and, leaving his staff and common sense behind, he began ascending after the maiden, safety be damned.

[Ataraxis]

‘Ooh, you really need a good workout, Lily!’ she confessed with shame, but the fiery jolts that were running along every fiber of her being had done a fair job at putting that particular sentiment in perspective; it was relatively hard to be bashful when one’s body was afire with the thousand flames of hell. It had been mere moments since she had undertaken the climb, but already was she stricken with the blights of those who had escalated miles of a jagged mountain face. It was a fairly sad sight to see her halt for a breather, some six feet above the grime-smeared floorboards, wincing with the bolstered burn in her left shoulder. ‘I mean seriously, morning calisthenics, just once in a while.’

Though she dismissed the inquisitive regards of the regular customers, who had stopped dead in their tracks and upturned their oily noses from the salacious prose of paperback novellas to stare at the singular spectacle of a delusional book-climber, Lillian had felt an unwonted shift in the adjacent shelves. Angling back her head, her sapphire gaze had first settled upon a cascade of amethyst, before meeting the most chipper orbs of emerald she had ever seen. With a slight alteration of her focus, she finally noticed that the boy was scaling the ledges just like her, and that he was getting alarmingly closer to her position…

“Hey!” she called out in high dudgeon, a plaintive frown set upon her delicate visage. “I was here first! Don’t you dare come any closer! I’m… armed and dangerous!” she claimed with hesitation, randomly plucking from the shelves a threesome of filthy books as potential projectiles. She gave them a cursory glance before shrieking abashedly, throwing the novels into the ground as though they were viscid slugs teeming with some infectious disease. They read: ‘The Thousand Swords of Throbbing Fire’, ‘To Shake the Almighty Spear’ and ‘One Size Fits All: The Torrid Tales of the Universal Scabbard’.

Shrugging the icky feeling off with a shudder, she returned her attention to the matter at hand. Lillian was no longer giddy with the sweetness of victory, but rather was overcome with the fear that this rapscallion, who had just wandered listlessly out of the blue, would steal her thunder alongside the object of her desire, right under her very nose. In between huffs and puffs, her heart pounding at the door of her chest, she exclaimed her zeal, resuming her ascension to the summit of the wooden peak. “Okay, little man! I may not be armed, but I bet I can climb faster than you! The Nexus is mine!”

The race was on, and though Lillian had bragged so openly, she was advancing at a downright dismal pace; there was only so much one could do with a single, working arm and the lung capacity of a four year old. Even so, the girl did not, would not capitulate: her spirits were fueled by an inner fire, driving her onward with the pure resolve of a lioness, so intense that it seemed a primal instinct. It was in times like these that her ghastly eyes shone at their fullest, a dichotomy of arctic fury and blazing passion. It was clear to any who observed that it was not power lust or the amoral ambition of an overzealous intellectual that made her pursue this legendary codex, but a much deeper, desperate need for the hurtful truth.

There were some things she simply had to know, no matter the cost; and the answers most likely lay in the Unseen Nexus.

With renewed intensity, she pulled herself up the final ledge, a groan of hurt escaping her pale lips as the skin of her wound had broken with the final exertion. “Ha! I made it!” Skimming the spine of the treasured book with her left hand, ignoring the painful sparks the motion elicited, she picked the bicentennial artifact from its perch. She was crying now, eyes transfixed on the risqué cover, though most of it was due to the pent-up pain being released with the gates of her emotions. Her sight was nearly occluded by the watery shroud, so blurred that she had not seen, but rather felt the sudden inclination of her body. “What the-?”

And in this manner, she had triggered a domino effect of monumental proportions. Wood clanked and books clonked as she was flung forward. Terrified screams echoed in the backdrop and she could hear a storm of feet shuffling about the library in a haphazard manner, eluding the collapsing titans and the rain of aching knowledge that spewed forth from their many maws. With much difficulty, she leapt from perch to perch, panting as her pulse stretched into a staccato rhythm, under the constant threat of being crushed or diving to her squashing demise. “Oh no,” she gulped, realizing that she was roosted on the last of the bookcases, which was teetering perilously to and fro. ‘Wait! I see low-hanging dome lights! Come on, girl! It’s that, or living the rest of your life as a walking pancake!’

She jumped. Time seemed to have been thrust into a stasis. In her bold soar, she felt tickling prods poking around her abdomen, and saw the world slowly ascend, suddenly spiking upward. There was resistance, the air seeming to blow through the ample frills of her dress, making it waft like a white flag in a blustery storm. “You can do it!” It was a powerful warcry, one that buffeted her high enough to clamp onto the wiry strings that affixed the lights to the ceiling. “Yes! I’m saved! I can’t believe I did it! I-”

Snap.

‘How did you not see that coming? There’s an actual law for that, you know?’ Holding in her hand a thick, severed thread, Lillian let herself fall to her doom, definitely jaded by the juvenile humor of the cosmos. It was by some miraculous intervention that, rather than chipping the parquetry with her skull, her body had collided with the soft fabric of a crazy-quilted beanbag of sorts, breaking her fall with a ‘poof’. The girl was panting heavily, cold sweat beading from every inch of her skin. She could still feel the sleekness of the book against her chest, remembering how she had stubbornly latched onto it. Then, she broke into a surge of unabated laughter. “At least the universe knows when to stop!”

“You! YOU! What have you done? You’ve turned my store all topsy-turvy! Look at what you’ve done!” Barry was up in arms, spitting fat drops of drool every which way as he flailed his arms in as though in the throes of a seizure. Lillian, staring past the pudgy little man, saw a thick mist of dust rising, shrouding the outlines of a dozen toppled cases. Then, in horror, Lillian realized the boy might be lost in the wreckage! She drew herself to a quick stand and started for the ruins, but was glad to see a head of claret hair, bobbing along the vacant corridor amongst a throng of screaming customers. “You’re going to pay for all this!” Barry was nearly tearing up, his dark eyes glazing over at the derelict state of his very livelihood. “Come over here! I’m calling the-”

The bells at the entrance chimed, followed by a loud slam of the door. From the outside, one could hear a flurry of apologies fade away.

“Oh god. I just shoplifted! I’m so sorry!”

[Culix]

Jannin had been unfazed when Lillian sent that intense cerulean gaze his way, but he paused and lost a bit of his edge at the arming and subsequent disarming. "Ha! Your time'd be better spent putting those three back, 'cause that book is all mine!" he would have given as answer to the young woman's taunt. Unfortunately, in order to do that, the boy had to take a breath, which taught him that old, unread books tend to collect a great deal of dust, and that he was not quite high enough to escape the small cloud of it that flowed from the dropped tomes. So, instead of delivering what he believed to be a snappy comeback, he coughed. Grah! Clever! But don't think disguising brilliant tactics as buffoonery is gonna work again!

On the subject of tactics, Jannin began forming his own once the coughing subsided. While strategy could be considered a life-saving mechanism, in this particular case, face-saving was more the aim. I meant to stop here! Now... To figure out why... He observed that while he'd been clearing his breathing passages, his opponent had, with an amount of gusto, turned her initially substantial lead into an insurmountable one. She's two shelves away, and I'm... five shelves... from the bottom. Grr... Lousy sneak... But I think I can still catch her, if I ha-- Wait! I don't have to! The epiphany lit up the young mage's face. It's not gonna do her much good up there. She's gotta come down! Ha! No way she's getting past... Huh? He found his train of thought thrown off track by the odd groaning sound from the bookcase. It seemed the universe had decided to defy him; the case, perilously swaying before, had definitely begun to tip. Aww...

A moment's thought told Jannin he didn't want to hang onto the shelf when it went down. Nevertheless, five shelves' distance was still taller than the boy was, so some reluctance was understandable. You're near the edge of the shelf. Just hop down and move. No big deal. It became a big deal when he found his right foot caught between 'The Ascending Scimitar' and 'The Twins in Your Hands.' So, while the young mage was fortunate not to land on his head, after a brief, awkward trip through the air, he landed on his back in the corridor, the carpet providing very little cushioning. He gasped pitifully as he felt the wind knocked from his lungs.

From ground level, Jannin watched in a daze as Lillian made her death-defying leap to a ceiling lamp... and her death-complying trip to the floor. Heh... At least this's the worst I got. Fresh from proving the young woman wrong, the universe decided to show it followed an equal opportunity policy of being contrary: the dust from the fallen bookshelves had risen at impact, and at that point began to settle on the hapless boy. Ohh... Not fair... He clamped his eyes shut at that point. I didn't even say anyth-- The boy then began to give strangled coughs. Jannin refused to die from the ancient powder of several hundred obscene books, and knew getting to even the meager elevation his figure allowed would put it off. So, eyes still securely shut, he fumbled about for his staff, and, with a good deal of unsteadiness, used it to return to his feet, sputtering all the while.

And there he stood, shaking away, with a light coat of dust clinging to his clothing and skin. Another cough. Still cautious about dust in his eyes, Jannin could not observe that it sent quite a few white particles into the air, a quality usually seen only in chalk golems. While thoughts of the book still floated somewhere in his head, his attention first went to something else. Ugh... Is it even possible to pull off the 'dusty' look? It's coming off, now. Feels gross, anyway. It's caked on with the sweat from my walk... The egomaniac shuddered. Despite being short of breath, vanity compelled him to use his meager oxygen on his favorite cantrip. So, after a few seconds of raspy chanting, a billowing of cloth and hair as from a breeze, and the gathering of filth into a distressingly large ball at Jannin's feet, the young mage stood as though fresh from a shower. "Phew," he said, much refreshed; breathing was much easier without dust in the lungs.

The lad then noticed the large crowd of people standing between himself, listening to Barry rant about a criminal, and the door. The door from which he heard the dying jingles of a bell. Dah! What're you waiting for? Go! Ya can't let her get away with your Nexus! So, without even considering that the criminal might have been another member of the seedy-looking group that had come out of the woodwork -- Jannin reflected in passing that he was happy not knowing why so many of the men had loosened their belts -- the determined bibliophile forced his way through the crowd and burst back onto Radasanth's streets.

His head jerked every which way as he squinted in the sunlight. His eyes found no young women, but they did chance on an old one. As the boy raised his finger and began to ask, she cut him off: "The apologetic shoplifter girl? That way." He gave a wave of thanks and darted down the indicated street, leaving her extended hand without a tip.

[Ataraxis]

‘They’re everywhere!’ The furtive glances Lillian slid to her surroundings were fraught with fear, widening every time they met the sturdy form a Radasanthian Guard. Oh, it was not that she was unappreciative of their daily upholding of law and order; but old perspectives tended to be rather fickle when one had never been on the wrong end of justice. ‘Well, except for that one time that ended in my expeditious exile from Fallien.’

As she weaved her way into the bustling throng of the city like a particularly wobbly needle, inadvertently elbowing an old woman with a limp here and toppling a nearsighted senior there, Lillian felt the onset of fatigue settling upon her frazzled limbs and burdened mind. It was enough that her mild paranoia had crossed into the realm of severe and that she was not imagining a captivity of beatings and floggings and stale bread and playing the harmonica under a depressing sunset, but also of one where dropping lathering instruments was a highly ominous form of foreshadowing – she realized then that she had perhaps spent an unhealthy amount of time reading book titles at ‘Bawdy Barry’.

‘I don’t even know how that would work for women... Bah, what are you thinking, Lily? This is no time for dirty dillydallying!’ However, as she explored the prospect of there being no appropriate time for such reprehensible activities, she had unmindfully jarred into what she had initially thought to be a lone-standing pole or a particularly fleshy wall. ‘What’s that doing in the middle of the road? I don’t recall reading anything about a postmodernist being in charge of construction...’

“Do forgive me, young lady. I have not been vigilant enough in my amble. Are you hurt?” The assuasive tone with which the obstacle had spoken was enough to convince her that it was not, in fact, an absurdity of masonry that had barred her route, but an actual living being. Studying him with a sweeping look, Lillian was most flummoxed to see a hunchbacked old man, clad in a vintage raiments that reminded her of ancient scholars and wizards of yore, his puckered lips hooked into a grandfatherly smile as he riveted upon her person amber eyes that were ripe with the wisdom of the elderly.

‘Huh?’ It had seemed that a cold front had swiftly blown across the vista of his glare, dousing their warmth for the merest of instants. “Well? I certainly hope the shock hasn’t feebleminded you!” He had spoken in jest, but Lillian could not shake off the foreboding feeling that it had been thought in earnest.

“I- I’m fine, thank you for asking. It was my fault for not looking carefully where I walked.” Somewhere in the deep recesses of her mind, a wry voice had not missed its chance to tantalize her. ‘Well, well, someone’s oddly fond of apologies, today. Perhaps you’ve taken a liking to being dominated?’ Quickly discarding the obnoxious taunt, Lillian swept the cobbled ground for the Unseen Nexus, which had left the nest of her arms at the time of the collision. It was in her best intention of recovering the tome as soon as possible, lest a passer-by chance a glance at the inadequately salacious book cover. “I’m sorry to have incommoded you, sir; I’ll just take my book and leave.”

‘Ah, there it is!’ As she scrambled on all four, she located the Nexus at the feet of the old man. Something else, however, had caught the corner of her eyes: not far off was a tightly-wadded raft of crimson papers, the first of the stack imprinted with a stylized marking that was alarmingly familiar. “Wait, isn’t that the symbol for explosive scriptures?” Lillian asked innocently, shooting a quizzical stare at the senior affront her. How his once gentle expression had become a furious scowl was all she needed to come to her senses. “Good lord, what were you planning to do with all of those?” The volume of her exclamation had attracted the attention of many, notably a trio of guards on patrol.

“Nobody move!” With a rapidity that belied his age-worn body, the man produced from his ample robes a piece of browned vellum, etched with a fiery sigil that Lillian recognized as a summoning array. There was no elaborate cantrip, no deliberate gesticulation: only the instantaneous ignition if the parchment, a crimson flash that robbed each and all of their sight. The air crackled with foreboding as fires roared with an unabated rage, but the worst had yet to come. A wicked bellow sounded near, an ear-splitting wail that sounded of cavernous maws and the dark monstrosities that they niche. Only when it had died down to a voiceless crepitation did she recover her sight, a benediction she would soon come to regret.

“Oh no.”

At the sides of the deuced wizard, a creature of pure fire now stood. Though it was appended with the limbs of a humanoid, its shape disclosed nothing that could even be considered as remotely solid, and its shape swayed too much for the being to have any physical consistence. For all intents and purposes, what Lillian now saw was a giant of a man that had been soaked in wine and set on fire... sans the giant of a man.

“Be warned: if you get in my way, I will be forced to carbonize you! No one will be harmed if the Barony of Radasanthia complies with our demands! Let it be known that the mining protocols of the Barony are an abomination to us, the Fire Mages Against Asbestos! Not only is the substance hazardous to our health, but it works against our very livelihood! We shall not be oppressed! If the Barony refuses to negotiate, then we will not hesitate to burn this district to the ground!”

[Culix]

Hmm... Looks like she's headed for the market, if I know Radasanth's streets at all. Which he apparently didn't; Jannin was pursuing Lillian in the direction of a retirement home, which certainly explained all the elderly people she'd bumped into. Congrats on giving me the slip before, but it's not gonna happen twice! The boy took another deep breath, before coughing out the last vestiges of the air in 'Bawdy Barry.' In the end, I'll find ya and enjoy the book, 'cause unlike most of the people here, I have vision! While it could have been taken both literally and figuratively, after the fire mage enacted his twist of fate, it became only a metaphoric truth. Dagh! My eyes! Nuts ta everything else! Blaaaaargh!! ... Or maybe just a lie.

Fortunately, Jannin's wits returned soon after the light died down. He still had to rub his eyes a bit before things took on recognizable form. Alright. Calm down a bit. There's just a geezer and... a large man of fire. ... Alright, then. The lad started to rub his eyes again, but the wizard's speech convinced him he wasn't just seeing things. A mother and daughter who had seen Jannin's entrance into the city were not far off, and the little girl's look clearly telegraphed him the message, "See? Now this is a spectacle." The young man missed this because he, like everyone else, was stopping to pay a little more attention to the man with the fiery servant. However, the youth differed from most of the crowd in that he feared for his life quite a bit less; he knew villains, and the only ones whose names were worth remembering were those who laughed a lot and delivered long, flowery monologues, or who those who let slip as few words as possible before making with the magic. So, Jannin viewed the straightforward fire mage as more of an inconvenience.

That girl's lucky... By the time this's over with, she'll probably... be... Wow, is that really her? Indeed, Lillian was unfortunate enough to still be at the pyromancer's feet. And she wasn't all. Though he failed to identify the small pile of explosive scrolls, Jannin gasped as his eyes widened. The book! Without thinking, he took a step forward, drawing the wizard's attention. "Hold, boy!" the man said, thrusting his right palm forward, "I've no wish to incinerate one so young, but I shall do what I must! The Baron must understand how serious we are." I guess you would have ta show it; calling yourselves the 'Fire Mages Against Asbestos' is a good way ta get laughed at. The boy wanted to forge ahead, but checked himself; the flames about the servant's ankle licked about, dangerously close to the book he sought. Just stay calm. He doesn't know how important the book is. And he's made a pretty pathetic claim, so odds are good that's all he wants. You should just ask him for it. What's the worst that could happen? Many possible answers to that question danced through the minds of the other hostages.

Jannin put on a smile. "Don't worry, I'm not pla--"
"Silence!"
"But I just--"
"One more word, and I'll have to kill you, boy." The wizard said it levelly and with a surprising coldness that seemed contradictory to his profession, and took even Jannin aback. A weight was ready to snap the fragile strand of the old man's patience. He just wanted to get on with ordering his captives to line up before him without being interrupted. Is that really so much to ask? he wondered. The mage was too busy with the little upstart that he missed one of the three nearby guards slipping down an alley. Thanks for the distraction, kid, the armored man thought as he hurried down the back street. The barracks aren't far, but here's hoping you don't try to be a hero while I'm getting reinforcements.

Fortunately, there was never any danger of Jannin trying to be a hero. However, there was always the threat of him doing something stupid. The old man cleared his throat. "Now, then. I want everyone to--"
"Well, I tried t-- Whoa!" The lad hopped away from of the fireball the wizard had just sent at him. He gathered it hadn't been intended to hit from the smoking black circle on the ground some some ways off. Regardless, the fire mage seethed, making clear without words that the next one would be more on target. But Jannin was more focused on something else: in casting the spell, the man had moved his feet, which pushed the book dangerously close to his walking bonfire of a partner. Ah! Much as he hated it, Jannin decided he would quiet down until he could think of his next move.

[Ataraxis]

‘Sometimes, I just wish the world would revolve a few miles away from me.’ As much as she wanted to pick up her legs leave a trail of smoke in her wake, a part of her was enjoying this unexpected misfortune; it wasn’t everyday that one bumps into a ardent revolutionary and gets caught in the ensuing crossfire. ‘Well, not so much cross as it is dangerously one-way, but still.’ Lillian quickly came to realize that this was not the most appropriate of moments to ponder semantics when a stream of sweltering heat flared inches past her face, frizzling a few stray strands of hair into smoldering curls.

Frozen stiff, she looked at the wizard with disbelieving eyes, then to the charred splotch that sizzled and fumed some way behind her, noticing a peculiarly familiar face, perched upon the body of a rather frazzled child. ‘The boy from the bawdy bookstore? What’s he doing her- Oh! The Nexus!’ Once again, her mind had rearranged her priorities in a rather queer manner. There she was, head bobbing back and forth from the boy to the book, going livid as she noticed the priceless piece was placed only steps away from the walking balefare the mage had summoned as cohort. ‘I need to get to it, but how? One slip and I’ll be saying goodbye to the world with smoke signals.’

There was no possible way for the girl to get out of this fix by herself, as her own magical prowess was left to be exasperatingly desired. ‘I could always throw my dirk, but chances are I’d only end up picking out the spinach stuck in his teeth.’ Considering that doing the man an esthetical service would not raise the odds in her favor, Lillian felt quite dispirited. She needed something to even out the playing field, anything. Anyone. In her mind echoed a distinct dinking sound. ‘Didn’t that kid have a staff?’

In the near future, she would recount this as the day she concocted the world’s quickest counter scheme. ‘It’s definitely not foolproof, but if a miracle occurs and it ends up working, I’ll just omit the technicalities from this anecdote.’ With a sheepish slowness, Lillian raised her arm and waved it like a particularly skinny white flag.

“What is it, girl?” The wizard snarled, lashing his wrinkly hand in her general direction for safety measure. While Lillian had been musing over an escape plan, the grizzled old man recovered his stack of explosive talismans, untying the crimson noose that bound it only halfway when Lillian had made her first move. “I have warned you already. Try anything, and I will regrettably have to turn you into a pile of ashes.”

“I… I need to go to the bathroom…” Lillian cringed as she heard herself speak. How embarassing. “Please, I don’t want to… well… here’s not exactly… with everyone, and… please, sir?

A success. The old wizard was now faced with a nettlesome conundrum. Clearly, he would rather spare an innocent than needlessly hurt one. As long as he wasn’t cornered, he would not resort to arbitrary killings, which already secured Lillian’s safety, for now. Through extrapolation, she judged that he would not deny her a common bodily relief, as long as she behaved. It was also a fair assumption that he would not let a child despoil herself in public, lest his probity be wounded and his name sullied. ‘He’s a revolutionary, not a tyrant. Plus, he’d look like a pervert if he were to let me…well.’

“Very well, but I shall have my loyal Sparky accompany you. This is not open to discussion.” Had Lillian truly needed to visit the washroom, this order would have incommoded her, but she agreed after a few moments of faked hesitation. Besides, the moniker given unto the fire elemental had occupied most of her thoughts; it was truly too amusing to be dismissed. “Do not wander off.” He pointed to a nearby alleyway. “Use that.”

Slowly, she padded away from the circle of whimpering hostages, feeling the eyes of the creature bore into her skull and its unbearable heat scalding her back. Craning her neck, she looked over her shoulder and met the boy’s emerald eyes, maintaining the lock for a fleeting instant before giving him a deliberate wink and the slightest of nods. ‘I hope he understands…’ she thought gloomily as her hands clenched into lilywhite fists, now aglow with a strange, purplish hue. ‘Make some noise.Oh Suravani, please, have this make a whole lot of noise.’ Rolling on the ball of her heels, she met the blazing monster head on, thrusting her palms forward to unleash whatever bizarre magic she had gathered. Rather than the sizzle-crack of a lightning bolt, came the bumbling burble of a bubble. In the air it hovered, traveling at a dismally bogging pace. ‘Oh for heaven’s sake. This is not what I ordered! At least-’

After going momentarily blind, it was her turn to become deaf. Upon collision with the flaming servant, the bubble had burst, releasing its gaseous contents. The deflagration that ensued had sent her flying back, ringing a thousand bells within her head. The elemental had quite literally exploded, expending most of its energy, and it was now bellowing like a dying beast. “What in the nine hells?” the wizard spouted in utter befuddlement, turning his back to the purple-haired boy as he looked on to the burning spectacle. ‘A… a hydrogen bubble? What a surprisingly convenient diversion But... what’s that pile of flames down there?’

If she had to wander a guess, she was currently having an aneurysm. ‘Ooooh no. Ooooooh no! No! NO!’ Caught in the blastwave was the Unseen Nexus, not as much a repository of universal knowledge as it was now a heaping pile of cinder.

[Atzar]

This was funny! I was pleased to see a sense of humor in a thread, and you two pulled it off well. The thread wasn't finished, but I didn't kill your score too much. Also, somebody has to lose…

Ataraxis

Continuity: 3 (The beginning was confusing for me. How did Lillian get hurt in the first place? I knew why you were there, but I didn’t know where you came from)
Setting: 6
Pacing: 6

Dialogue: 6
Action: 6
Persona: 5

Mechanics: 8 (Very few errors, and all of them negligible… well done)
Technique: 6
Clarity: 4 (You get overly verbose at times, and it hinders the purpose of your posts)

Wild Card: 4 (First post was late, the rest were timely)

Total: 54



Culix

Continuity: 5
Setting: 5
Pacing: 6

Dialogue: 7 (Your character’s thoughts and words are unique and interesting)
Action: 6
Persona: 7 (See Dialogue. Your character’s personality was unique and entertaining. This category won the battle for you)

Mechanics: 8 (Very few errors, and all of them negligible… well done)
Technique: 7 (Your style fits Jannin’s personality very well)
Clarity: 6

Wild Card: 3 (First post was very late, the rest were timely)

Total: 60

Culix gains 150 exp and advances to round 3.
Ataraxis gains 50 exp.

[Cyrus the virus]

EXP added.