Open Battle

[Xen]

As Xen walked up the steps to the legendary Citadel, the temptation to turn back almost conquered him. For the last week he had found some excuse or other to turn back; he was feeling ill, had forgotten his bow, needed to have lunch first, needed to wait an hour after eating, etcetera. Today there were no excuses left, he had to man up and go in.

It’s not fair. Not even my idea. Why do I care what they think. I should go back. I’m going back.

The reason he was going to the Citadel in the first place was that the hotel he was staying at just so happened to be above the bar that seemed to be the local hangout for the Radasanthian Watch’s newer recruits. As a right of passage they each would fight a battle in the Citadel and then return to tell their buddies about it. Finding bawdy drinking companions with compelling stories, Xen was inducted into their group with ease. Fascinating as their stories were, Xen often had little input of his own having never fought in the Citadel.

Halting suddenly in his trek back to Radasanth, Xen recalled the previous evening during which he foolishly boasted that he would be visiting the Citadel himself today. He couldn’t go back now, not after saying that. They’d laugh at him, call him a coward. No, he had no choice but to fight.

Resolute, Xen moved through the massive stone archways marking the entrance addressing himself to the nearest unoccupied monk. “I…I would like to fight.”

The monk put on a forced smile and spoke with unsuppressed impatience. “…and?”

Confused, Xen darted an embarrassed look around. “And what? I don’t really know how this place works.”

Sighing heavily, the monk gestured towards one the many hallways, giving directions quickly. “Go there, pick a door, open the door, go through the door, wait, fight your opponent. Simple enough?”

Blushing deeply, Xen stepped quickly away from the monk as nonchalantly as he could, all the while casting quick, furtive glances around. Sufficiently embarrassed for one encounter, Xen stepped through the first door and gladly pulled it shut behind him.

[Feed The Machine]

The sound of hard boot soles clashing against the stone walkways of the dim Citadel hallway was threatening to those who listened at the other end of the tunnel. The echoes made the advancing individuals sound like an approaching army, set on conquering the famous battle facility with no remorse, or mercy. Chatter had ceased as loungers nervously anticipated witnessing those that were coming forth out of the tunnel. Heartbeats thumped harder, and sweat dripped faster. “Who could it be?” Some of the people inquired, turning to one another for answers. “Could it be a returning legend maybe? Perhaps Letho Ravenheart, Damon Kaosi, Seth Dahlios, Zephyriah, or even Storm Veritas!?” The eyes of the spectators peered forward, waiting. The walking sounds grew louder, and seemed more in unison the closer these mystery men approached.

Thump, thump, thump, thump. Fear had risen among the people. Steps were taken back, while people came to that point in their life when they encountered a potentially bad situation. “Should I stay and fight, or should I take off like an airship flight?” This question blared vociferously in the mind of the lobby dwellers. Then from out of the tunnel, at the apex of suspense, ten Raiaeran bladesingers approached, basking in the light of the lobby. Some gasped in reverence before the military men, watching them cautiously as they took in their surroundings.

“So this is the Citadel.” Galyl mentioned, looking upwards at the high ceiling. He’d heard a great deal about the Coronian battle arena and was always fascinated by the concept of it. At times he would propose to General Oronra of the Bladesinger Guild that Raiaera would do well to have a similar set up. However, the General always vehemently rejected it, believing that having such a thing would only promote additional strife in the already hectic, problem striken elven lands. The young Bladesinger came up with an idea after several rejections. Knowing full well that Raiaera was always in need of additional soldiers, he suggested to the General that he deploy a small team to the Citadel in order to showcase the talents of the Bladesingers. If all went well, then onlookers interested in the power that the elves wielded would seek them out and perhaps join their ranks. It was a simple plan that had great potential for failure and success. If their skills proved razor sharp in battle, then Raiaera would be glorified. But if their talents went unnoticed due to poor performance, then the elven country would only have that heavy cloud of shame hovering over their continent thickened. Oronra agreed to this nonetheless, for the potential to acquire new and strong recruits was too tempting. He'd grown tired of dealing men who only enlisted to increase their fame and status in society.

“I’ll take the initial reigns, guys,” The other nine elves willingly moved out of Galyl’s way as he walked to the counter to register for a battle. They weren’t nearly as excited about this as he was. “Excuse me kind sir, are there any open battles? I’ve been told that in order for someone to enter a battle, it has to be…..” The Galoriand was cut off by the monk’s obnoxious, and obviously rude yawn.

“Why is it that I always get stuck attending to the idiots? A guy just before you was equally as novice and clueless as you are,” The monk pointed angrily down a hallway, northeast of Galyl’s position. “First door on the left! There you’ll find your open battle!!!”

The Obsidian Spire resident didn’t pay the monk’s rudeness any mind, but instead thanked him. He’d already been well trained in dealing with arrogant people, having spared countless times with Glenion, one of the Ost’Dagorlin Headmaster’s children. “I don’t know how long this will take men, but pray to Aurient for my victory. We may futher exhibit Raiaera's greatness by winning.” Galyl walked off toward the northeast hallway, while the remaining elves waved him off behind his back.

“Come on guys, let’s go find the bar.”

[Xen]

With the metallic clicking sound of a latch popping into place, the door simply faded before him. It was just suddenly invisible, and upon groping out it seemed to have moved as well. Without any other distraction, Xen was forced to look around.

The overwhelming size of it hit him first. He appeared to be in some monstrous and alien city, like nothing he’d ever heard or dreamed of before. The very ground had been altered somehow, made to feel like stone but unlike anything he’d ever seen. The air was thick with contaminates, lifeless and stale. Everywhere he looked buildings of steel and glass rose high, blocking off the sun.

Xen shivered, never before had he felt so cut off from nature, so completely and totally alone. A building a dozen or so yards away looked to have people inside, but as he approached they became less human. Some sort of construct made in the human form and wearing clothing, but faceless and dead.

Examining his own reflection, Xen realized he had accidentally worn the same colored pants and shirt, both a light brown and made of cotton. Humans held it in bad taste to wear solid colors most of the time, but it seemed in his nervousness he had forgotten. It turned out to lucky he was examining the reflective glass as he spied the door reappearing some distance down the street in his periphery.

Knowing that his own fighting skills were rather lacking, Xen bolted for the nearest door into the building and entered, hiding himself among the clothing racks and watching carefully for his opponent through the window. Trickery would have to be his weapon.

No turning back now.

[Feed The Machine]

“WHAT IN THE WORLD!?”

The Galoriand involuntarily blurted that out only to have his echo repeat the question as he leaned his head backward, staring upward at the erected buildings that he’d never before laid eyes on. He stood in the middle of a street that had wet blotches of heavy black, indicating that an oil spill of some sort had occurred at some time. The quiet roads were also filled with litter unlike he had ever seen. Old magazines, cigarettes, paper bags, and even faded, washed out clothes were components of this urban street trash. “What kind of place am I in? Even the worst parts of Treynce don’t even look like this!”

The young Bladesinger walked north observing everything he’d come across. Despite the filth, he was astounded by the high level of technology that this place had. Everything he set his eyes upon was much more advanced than anything Alerar had the capability to construct. Contraptions consisting of four metal doors and four rubber wheels were parked on every street and at every corner, some in tact and some utterly destroyed. He knew not what these things were called but found that his curiosity was being aroused.

“Get it together Galyl!” With the palm of his left hand, the elf hit his forehead in a reprimanding way as the fingertips of his right hand came within a mere three inches of the windows of one of the four wheel metal contraptions. He’d entered this battle in hopes of displaying his talents, so as to possibly bring more recruits to the Bladesinger, and Tel Aglarim ranks. There was no time to let his guard down and explore. “The enemy could be anywhere…”

Galyl scanned the area, looking for signs of life. The grand metropolis was surprisingly silent, but he knew his opponent had to be close by. “Back in the lobby when I first arrived, the monk indicated that my opponent had spoken to him right before I had. So either the enemy is somewhere nearby, or he or even she, is hiding.”

It was at that moment that the Galoriand heard a voice, followed by the clanking sound of a bouncing can. Instantly he looked for cover, associating that sound with the enemy. He wanted to find a place in which he would still be able to get a glimpse of his opponent had he or she walked in this direction. Thinking fast, he opened the front door of one of the many four-wheel metal machines and hopped in the front seat. The smell within was extremely foul, due to a rotting corpse that had its head leading against the passenger seat window, half splattered. In its hand was a pistol, still tightly gripped. “Suicide……..” Galyl turned his head away, thinking about many of his Galoriand brethren that had taken their own lives, unwilling to deal with the pain that their cursed life brought.

Focusing back on the task at hand, the Bladesinger stared out of the massive front glass of the four-door machine. He waited patiently for the enemy to reveal him, or herself, but was suddenly distracted by a buzzing sound coming from within the car. Galyl frantically searched for the source, not wanting the enemy to hear this noise and discover his position. He found that the buzzing sound was coming from a device that was attached to a string, which was attached to a key just below the strange interior wheel of the contraption. The device had a small screen and numbers on it. “How do I turn this thing off?” The Red Forest native tried squeezing it, slamming it, and even twisting it. Nothing happened. So, he figured that perhaps the key was what had powered the small, annoying device and thus decided to turn it. However, the four-wheel contraption started to roar like an Alerarian airship. Colorful lights turned on and the sound of people talking from within the contraption came out of nowhere. “What is this stupid thing!? Shut up! Shut up already!!” His indignation caused him to repeatedly pound his feet on the floor of the contraption. Yet as luck would have it, the machine went from being in an immobile position, to instantly speeding down the street, much faster than any horse he had ever ridden.

“AHHHH!!!!!!” The Galoriand screamed at the top of his lungs, desperately trying to control the foreign thing. He instinctively held the wheel like the reigns of a horse and found that the wheel controlled the contraption. Fiercely turning it left, Galyl sped down another street dodging other contraptions by sheer luck. But his luck ran out as the front wheels hydroplaned over one of the many oil spills and sent the machine spiraling over a curb and into a department store. The windows had completely shattered as the contraption went airborne, flying straight towards the clothing racks. There was no time to do anything other than brace himself. Therefore, Galyl held onto the steering wheel tightly and shot three roots out of his body, which in turn latched onto the seats of the contraption. He had to lessen the damage from the inevitable crash as much as possible.

[Xen]

As he hid quietly in the clothing, stifling irregular coughing fits caused by dust, Xen tried to stay focused on the battle. Instead, his mind wandered to what the conversation would be like later, what questions his friends would ask and how he’d answer. ‘So what did you shout as you charged into the fray?’ Well, let’s see. I didn’t shout anything because I’m hiding in the short sleeve section. What’s that noise?

The muted rumbling almost like thunder reverberated slowly into the store, rapidly gaining volume. I wanted to fight a human, or maybe an elf. Not a monster. Why would they put me against a monster? Do I look like a monster slayer? Not moments after he thought it then did his fear round a corner distantly, slightly distorted by glare on the window.

A huge beast made of metal and glass with seemingly inexhaustible lungs roared as it charged down the road, similar to the many still motionlessly parked by curb. On his first look around, Xen had taken them for some grotesque form of art. They seemed inanimate at the time and possessed a certain slick beauty of their own, so it wasn’t a bad assumption. Realizing that it was headed directly for him with incredible speed, Xen stood up among the clothing and drew his bow, knocking the ice arrow as it formed within is his hand.

In his fear, Xen had gripped the bow incorrectly, resulting in a lashing of his own arm with the arrow sent on its way. His arm feeling as though burned by an iron, Xen leapt to the side as quickly as he could. Even the knowledge that it was moving fast and sheer speed would carry its arrow-killed body into him, Xen was unable to avoid the mechanical monster. The construct flew through the window viciously and struck him dead on. By sheer luck, Xen’s last second dodge allowed his legs to be knocked away and his body to impact the front glass which caved beneath his body, knocking him unconscious.

[Feed The Machine]

The elf’s eyes opened to a world of soft, fluffy white. Was he in heaven? Was there even such a thing? Galyl had always been one to favor the possibility of their being an afterlife, since the inner workings of life on the physical plane were grossly unfair. Some men lived out their entire lifespan, while others were unable to make it out of infancy. The Galoriand was often considered a boy by elven standards since his people lived for several millennia. So as far as he was concerned, if his life had come to an abrupt and tragic end, then he’d hoped the Thaynes would award him the opportunity to live out the rest of his long life in another plane as compensation for his early and untimely death.

As it turned out though, the Bladesinger was very much alive, for upon further regaining his senses, he realized that his face wasn’t deep in the clouds of a celestial realm, but within the supple comfort of a white bag filled with air that seemed to have ejected out of the steering wheel. He didn’t know what to make of this, contemplating further on the function of the four door metal monster. “Why would this contraption have this strange balloon in it?”

Galyl wondered about the peculiar world he was in, feeling more confused and lost the longer he spent in it. However, his attention was quickly redirected to the lacerations across his neck and arms. Pain surged through his body as he tried to move around. Glass shards from shattered windows had found residence in the young soldier's milky white flesh, sending additional discomfort throughout the Bladesinger. Using the roots that had been used for collision support, Galyl pulled some of the larger glass pieces out of his skin.

“I’ve got to get….out of…..here…” Seeing how climbing out of the window was the only available option for exiting the contraption, The Obsidian Spire resident popped the white bag balloon to create space for himself. The front end of the metal machine was completely totaled, even to the point that smoke was fleeing from it. Galyl stuck his arms out of the driver window, but not before pushing aside the corpse that’d fallen in his lap upon crashing. Strangely, there was now an arrow made completely of ice lodged in the dead man’s head as well as a single hole surrounded by numerous cracks in the metal contraption’s large window.

The smell of burning clothes and manikins were in the air. The roaring machine had pinned the model figures against a wall, yet due to the smoke and fire that the contraption expelled, melting of these dummies began to take place. This didn’t concern the soldier seeing how he needed to take care of his wounds if he was going to be in any good condition to fight his opponent whenever he crossed paths with him or her. However, his constant enemy alertness had deactivated and been replaced with great concern the instant he saw a man unconscious, spread out on the ground with glass all around him. “An innocent bystander! Did I…did I…hit him!?” Galyl tried sprinting toward the fellow, but settled for a speedy walk since his own injuries prevented him from moving at the speed he wanted. Kneeling down, he placed his index and middle fingers underneath the man’s mandible, checking to see if he was still alive. “Ah good, he still has a pulse. I have to get him medical attention though. He needs it more than I do.”

Getting up, the Galoriand searched around the area for anything that would aid the man. If worst came to worst, he’d have to carry him over his shoulder and find a medical center in the vast and confusing technological world that he found himself in.

((Xen, I assume that you'll come out of your state of unconsciousness in some way, shape, or form. If that be the case, then you'll have the element of surprise since Galyl doesn't think that you're the enemy.))

[Xen]

Having rolled off the front of the vehicle, glass shards were driven deep within Xen’s body, causing him to wake groggily. Lying on the floor next to him was the decapitated head of one of the faceless manikins, his first sight upon waking. Grimacing with the pain, the ice elemental managed to sit up stiffly, taking stock of his surroundings.

The metallic beast lay unmoving a few yards away while emitting smoke and fire, igniting the nearby clothing. Broken glass and overturned racks covered the room, clothing scattered everywhere. Beneath his very sore body was a pair of denim pants stained dark with his blood. Suspended lamps swung overhead, their lights flickering occasionally but unnecessary with the sun still out. Why there were lights on in the buildings at that time of day was a puzzle, but he didn’t have time to ponder it. A few feet away something was moving, just outside of his periphery.

Turning with a grunt, Xen wiped blood away from his eye and tenderly felt a cut across his eyebrow. Seeing the strangely dressed figure, stranger still with branches coming out of him, Xen struggled to form a coherent thought slurring his halting words. “You…You’re not…not a monk.”

Staring for a few moments more with watery eyes, the young elemental put two and two together. This man was not a monk, was in the citadel’s battle arena, and had not been attacked by the smoking metal machine. “You! You made that thing attack me!”

Crawling backwards to lean against the rough brick wall, Xen forced a dark blue dagger to form in his hand. Simple but sharp, the ice weapon may not have stood up to any real combat, but enough to reassure him. Attempting to stand, Xen howled from the pain as he tried to put weight on his right leg. Broken by the vehicle, it was pure agony to put even the slightest weight on it, like fire shooting through his veins.

Gasping for air, Xen pointed the dagger at the man as threateningly as he could. His bow was nowhere in sight, he couldn’t even stand much less runaway, and things were looking bad.

What now? What the hell do I do now? What the hell can I do?

[Feed The Machine]

“Hmm?” Responding to the outcries of a sudden voice among the low sounds of the slow burning manikins, the Bladesinger saw the terrified and extremely guarded bystander fidgeting with a dagger in hand. He was shocked to see him fully alert for but a few moments ago, the fellow was completely unconscious.
“What do you mean?” Galyl calmly inquired about the man’s accusations with regard to being purposely attacked with the metal contraption. “Do you see this?” Pointing to his own wounds, the soldier stepped toward a cabinet where several towels, first aid wraps, and healing ointments were. “I’m as beat up as you are. I had no idea that such a frightening machine existed, and certainly had no intentions of harming you. In fact, I didn’t even know that someone was here!”

Galyl used the towels to sop up the blood that was leaking from his wounds. Afterward he’d applied the healing ointment and cut loose several long pieces of bandages in order to wrap his neck tight enough to stop the bleeding, but loose enough to still permit him to breathe. There was enough to cover the wounds on his arms with, but he only used enough to wrap the larger lacerations, since he wanted to save enough for the scared man to use.

The elven warrior wanted to get closer to the bystander and give him the remains of the first aid, but knew that the frightened man was much too precarious to allow Galyl to help him. For all he knew, the dagger-wielding individual could cut him down while he was helping him heal. Still, the code of the Bladesingers was to protect those in need, and this gentleman was not excluded from benefiting from such a creed.

“Alright, just relax,” The Obsidian Spire native slowly walked in the direction of the bystander. He was approximately fifty feet away from him. However, after walking twenty feet Galyl stopped abruptly after seeing the man’s weapon more clearly. “That dagger. It’s made of……” The young warrior thought back to the ice arrow that was lodged into the head of the corpse within the machine. “So it was him that fired it. That means that he’s the….….!!!”

He remained calm. The element of surprise was the greatest advantage that a warrior could have. “By my willingness to help him out, this man doesn’t yet know that I’m the enemy. He’s on guard, but he is no different than a petrified cat in the corner with its hair raised. Once I’m within range, I’ll strike!!”
Being in his first Citadel battle, Galyl was slowly learning how things worked here. He contained his excitement albeit with great effort. “It won’t be long before this battle is over.” The Bladesinger continued walking slowly toward his enemy with the healing ointment, spare towels, and bandage wraps in hand. “Victory shall be Raiaera’s!!”