As the first fighter in the arena, William had some extra time to size-up his opponents. He was a veteran of a hundred fights just like this one and knew that understanding his enemies would be just as important as understanding his own limits. Neither opponent was familiar to William so despite his desire to simply rush headlong into the arena, William forced himself to stay his hand and study them.
Years ago in the frozen wasteland of Berevar, William had challenged the Thayne Jomil and had emerged victorious. In reward the Thayne of chaos gifted him with her blessed sight. Ever since, William saw nothing but the entropy in all things. It didn’t matter if what William looked at was a living creature, an inanimate object, or even threaded weave of magic, everything appeared to break down and waste away while he watched. The downside was that it made it next to impossible to appreciate anything beautiful or to hold any sort of meaningful relationship. After all, it was hard to get past seeing a partner growing frail and dying a dozen different ways every second of every day. But Jomil’s sight wasn’t purely a curse. There were benefits to seeing the flaws and weaknesses inherent in everything, primarily the knowledge of how to exploit those weaknesses.
The first enemy to enter was a monstrous humanoid with a familiar. It was likely that she was a naturalist of some sort, given what William knew of faun’s and their connection to the earth. She was graceful and slender and would move easily across the Dancing Stones, though how much traction she could muster with her hooves would be something William would have to test. But he’d have to be wary of her companion, who likely aided her magic in a variety of esoteric ways. Despite this, William’s destructive enlightenment told him that she had entered the arena with little more defense than her breastplate and her agility. Neither of which would prove to be much of an obstacle to his razor claws or obsidian scythe.
And then there was the man in silver and white. He was more armored than the faun, sporting a full-body suit of dehlar, a gleaming overcoat, and a plethora of blades. William’s first instinct was to dismiss the swordsman and focus on the monster, but that changed when the man conjured two inky, sword-weilding tentacles. They waved in a rhythm that defied the howling winds around them and occasionally swept around in an arc that covered half the arena. The mage spoke a word and gestured at the faun, sending one of the tentacles to assault her with some sort of magic infused blade. That left only one blade to defend the mage. He had just made himself William's priority.
The sound of grating stone rose from where William's clawed feet dug into his platform. He tensed, every muscle in his powerful body coiled as tightly as an Aleraran watchmaker's precision mechanics. Then, with a snarling battle-cry which was lost to the wind, William launched himself into the Dancing Stones.
Behind him, the platform tumbled away, seized by gravity and hurled into the yawning abyss that waited at the bottom of the arena. There would be no going back and no safe harbor for the burning warrior now. His fate was entwined with the shuddering pillars that were already descending whenever he touched one, though his leaping bounds skipped two and three at a time.
Experience reminded William that the number of pillars would begin dwindling fast once the other combatants entered the Dancing Stones, so he stuck to the outside edges of the arena where the number of pillars were already light. He didn't know just what the mage's tentacle was capable of, only that it was tough as titanium and had a titanic reach. Agility was on the tentacles side, but William doubted it could match him for sheer strength or speed, so that was where he was planning on hitting it. Move fast enough and the pillars would only start dropping at a glacial pace. He could leap into the tentacle's reach, strike it hard with the flat of his warscythe to drive it away, make a quick strike at the mage while it recovered, then retreat to an already triggered pillar so as not to drop any of them that he didn't have to. It wasn't the greatest plan, given that he knew next to nothing about the mage's other capabilities, but William had always been the type to charge in first and adjust his plan as necessary.
As if reading his intention, the tentacle rippled along it's length and thrust it's sword at him. William paused on his pillar as the blade came in and put himself on guard. He eyed the blade's incoming trajectory, ignoring the lurching feeling in the pit of his stomach as the pillar dropped faster and faster beneath him. This close he could see that the shimmering blade appeared to be made of ice, and for a moment he thought about simply blasting it with fire, but this wasn't really the type of arena where one could afford to try new things just for the fun of it. Instead, William let the reach of his warscythe meet the incoming blade, turning it aside with a screeching smack just before the blade struck home.
He leapt the moment his weapon met the mage's, jumping up the the next pillar inside the tentacle's reach. He'd have liked to have moved closer, but his delay had dropped his feet significantly below the top plane of the Dancing Stones and he didn't want to risk catching on the edge of another pillar and tripping himself up. He would never forgive himself if tripped and died.
As soon as he'd gotten his feet back under him, William prepared to make his move, but the tentacle was faster than he'd thought. The thick, oily body of the thing curled inward to form a protective line between William and the mage, and he could feel the ice blade twisting around to come at him from behind. That was something he hadn't considered. Once inside the tentacle's guard, the conjuration essentially had an unlimited avenue of directions from which to attack him, all the while using it's bulk to funnel him away from it's master. William cursed himself, spun out and leapt inwards towards another ring of pillars.
His initial gambit had failed, now it was time to reassess his situation.
