Choose Your Own Death

[Elijah_Morendale]

Now closed to Karuka.

Men.

More specifically, Elijah.

You let him get a couple hard drinks into him, and he goes and forgets his place in the world and fucks up like only he can. Case in point: Last night, we went to some tavern in Radasanth. After a couple drinks (he's a two beer queer, to be honest), he starts eyeballing this guy who looked like he's kicked some asses in his day. The big guy notices that he's being stared at, and kindly asks the chief to stop it.

"Hey man, I bet I can beat up more people than you," Elijah proclaimed while shoving a finger into the guy's face.

The man replied, also as drunk as hell, "Nuh uh, stupid! I can kill more people than you can!"

That was all it took--luckily, it didn't erupt into a brawl, I'm sick of getting kicked out of nearly every tavern we stop at. But the giant of a man stood up and said something that I can't quite recall at this point, seeing as I'm still trying to overcome Elijah's hangover for two. Something about the Citadel and some sort of contest, if I'm not mistaken. Elijah and this guy would walk in, and whoever could kick the shit out of three people first would win, and the other guy would be stuck with the massive bar tab the two of them racked up that particular night.

Once I reminded the chief about the bet in the morning, he began to freak, much to my amusement. He was all like, "Hey, you gotta' do this for me," to which I reply, "Why? You're the moron, you can fight your own damn wars for once. Time to man up and take responsibility for your actions instead of constantly hiding behind me." I must've hit a chord with that one, since he spent the better part of the morning sulking around our inn room.

Until, that is, he bribed me with a new sword if I were to fight in the Citadel for him.

So here I am, a bloodthirsty grin plastered on my face, eagerly awaiting the first unlucky son of a bitch. The arena that the monks created for my dance of death was well suited to my tastes. I was standing near the middle of a concrete slab that was thirty feet long on each side. Slowly turning around, I saw that the wall was lined with two foot long steel spikes. The ceiling, maybe ten feet above my head, was also decorated with the spikes. In the middle of the arena sat a vat of lava, which was carved into a ten foot by ten foot section of the concrete slab. A very shady-looking piece of metal link cage covered the vat--probably sturdy enough to walk over without having to worry, but if someone were to fall onto it, the force would probably break the grid and give the unlucky sap a nice hot bath that would clean the meat right off their bones.

Bright torches were placed at the corners to illuminate the arena, their flickering flames causing punji shadows to dance all over the wall and ceiling. I sat down and pulled out a deck of cards that Elijah kept in his coat pocket to quell the boredom of waiting for my first opponent. I could feel the heat of the lava as it cascaded onto my face, causing a thin layer of sweat to form. I wiped my forehead dry with a denim sleeve as I shuffled the cards and dealt myself a game of Solitaire.

I wonder who my first victim of this saga will be.

[Karuka]

I'm trying first person for Karu as an experiment for this thread, just to see how it goes.

I hadn't left the Citadel for two days now, having been learning the use of my new daggers. It was hard, frustrating work, and I didn't seem to be improving any at all. What I needed now was to know whether I could fight, or whether I would be better off just getting a job in Radasanth. I had enough money to support me for a while, years, actually, if I was frugal. I could survive without going and getting into trouble.

I didn't want to do that, however. I wanted to keep going, keep striving for...something. I just didn't know what. I'd lost any logical reason to keep striving five days before, so there wasn't any reason I could live a dull but stable life here in Radasanth. Nothing save that inexplicable drive. I suppose I'll call it wanderlust.

Well, in that case, it makes sense to at least try to learn how to fight. I'd come to Althanas knowing nothing in the arts of self defense, and save for ridiculous amounts of dumb luck, I'd surely have died several times over. The cynical don't believe in luck, though. So I needed to be prepared.

But I was getting really sick of getting my Irish ass handed to me in combat, first by Josh Cronen and then by the Dark Elf Izvilvin. Both of them had seemed like good enough people, but I could barely land a hit on either of them with the clumsy knives that sat heavily around my hips.

I spoke briefly to a monk, then shoved open one of the heavy doors. I wasn't in this particular battle to keep striving in vain to learn to use my blades. I was in this one to kick some ass, and I needed my staff to do that. I'd been hitting people with sticks for almost two years now, and it worked better than hitting them with sharp objects.

A roiling blast of heat lashed across my face as I stepped into the battlefield, as though I'd stepped into a Christian version of Hel. Looking around, the only thing I could think about the spiked walls and lavapit was overdone. I didn't know who the man with the sadistic grin was, but he was probably one sick bastard.

As I stepped forward onto the concrete slab, my vision blurred for a split second, and I tensed. Things normally got blurry right before an image of an attack came, but this time it didn't. This time, overlapping the black-haired man with the tuft of goatee, there was a crazed looking woman with bright red hair.

This was...incredibly odd.

The chains over the pit looked like they'd hold, so I held my staff horizontal for balance and started walking over them, toward the sword-wielding man/woman combination. I couldn't figure out why there was a woman in his body, but I'd seen too many weird things to question it much. I finally spoke as I reached the midway point over the pit, speaking loudly to be heard over the clanking chains under my boots.

"My name is Karuka. Which of you am I fighting? The man or the lass?"

[Elijah_Morendale]

Red eight goes on black nine. Flip three cards. Black queen goes on red king; red jack through red five go on top of that. Flip over face down card. Two of spades goes on ace. Sigh. It felt more like instructions for building a spice rack than a way of keeping yourself entertained. I'll never understand why Elijah likes playing this retarded game. Flip three cards. Curse. Flip three more. Curse again.

Whoosh. Whoosh. Ah, it sounds like my opponent has finally arrived. "Took you long enough," I muttered to myself. I snatched the cards off the warm concrete floor and crammed them into the thin cardboard box before stashing that in an inside pocket of the chief's old denim jacket. I slowly rose to my feet, getting a good look at the woman who stood precariously over the pit of lava. She was as tall as Elijah and myself, and thinner. She had a healthy head of dark red hair that flowed down her back and a piercing set of blue eyes. The bright amber glow from the lava pit below her served to accent her already tanned skin. Her hands were gripped around a mean-looking staff. Her face was cute in a strange way; it was too bad that I had already begun planning to ram it into one of the punji spikes that lined the wall.

The woman was sizing me up as well, but tensed up shortly after. She had the nerve to ask me which of us she was fighting. Huh, this girl must have some strange mind hacking powers if she can see me.

"Well, lass, isn't it obvious that you're fighting both of us? I am Elijah, Elijah is me. Pretty basic stuff, if you ask me." It was time for this fight to get underway. I began to craft a couple of thin icicles in my right hand, but the friggin' stuff was melting as soon as I could make it. I gazed downward; drops of water were pouring off of my fingers and pooling on the floor below.

Well, that sucks.

Instead of relying on Elijah's icecraft, I decided to do things my own way. I took my katana in hand, slowly drawing it from its wooden sheathe. The bright glow of the lava reflected off the steel blade, casting a small ray of dull light against the concrete and the woman's slightly conservative outfit. I held the sword out, the tip aimed squarely between her eyes, and smiled.

"Twenty gold says you don't last three minutes against me, lass." I stood still like a statue, silently begging that she'd strike first. There was no fucking way that I was going to venture onto the rickety metal gate that suspended her over the lava pit.

[Karuka]

She thought that I wouldn't last three minutes against her. I may not have been an expert swordswoman at all, but I'd faced enough of them to know that she wasn't even holding the bloody thing right. One solid whack on her wrists would probably disarm her.

Still, the creature looked vicious, and I wasn't thinking needfully vicious. You never knew what to expect from her sort, and since just seeing her seemed to be using up my precognitive sight. This could be a long fight.

Stepping off of the rattling chain grate and back onto concrete, I wiped my forehead with my sleeve and grimaced at the accumulation of liquid in my boots. I'm lucky to have been gifted with good balance, or this fight could be very slippery.

"Three minutes is fine by me. The sooner out of this oven, the better."

I looked into the girl's eyes once more, seeing how intense and bloodthirsty they were. I felt my stomach turn, and I wanted to walk out. I wasn't afraid...it was more like disgusted. And irritated. Yes. I was irritated at the sheer lack of respect she afforded me when she wasn't even experienced with her own weapon. If the girl wanted to really fight, she'd have to really respect. She was a rookie in all the worst ways.

I'm going to win this one, I thought vaguely, but I didn't have much time to spare thought. The heat was stifling, like it wanted to melt my brain from the inside until it dripped from my ears like a pinkish gray goo. If I wanted to win, I'd have to focus.

"I'll take your twenty and raise it to forty...bairn*."

That said, I stepped forward quickly, lashing out at her with all the force I could muster. I didn't attack her hands directly yet. No. I wanted to see how fast she reacted.

*bairn = child

[Elijah_Morendale]

I cocked my head to the side slightly. Did this girl call me what I think she just called me?

"Um, last I knew a bairn, or what we normal people like to pronounce as barn, is what you store hay and tools in and where you keep farm animals sheltered from the harsh elements. Not much of an insult, if you ask me." I shrugged my shoulders. "But alas, words aren't sharpened blades of steel here, otherwise I'd leave you with two gouged-out eyes, a missing arm and foot, half of your throat lying a good ten feet away, and my sword jutting out of your chest."

I pointed the tip of my sword at her, and cracked a maniacal smile. "Not that I wouldn't leave you like that anyways."

I released my hold on the wooden sheathe. The oak lightly clunked against the concrete floor as gravity did its job. I held my katana in a ready position with both hands. Sweat formed on my palms, which made my grip a little less trustworthy than normal. Don't get me wrong; I still had confidence that I was going to disembowel this bitch and strangle her to death with her own intestines. All I needed was an opening.

The redhead charged, her ample red hair flowing behind her. She held her staff in a manner that suggested that she didn't expect much from me. Hmph. I'll show her. As she swung the rod at my face, I slid my left palm up the flat edge of the katana. I easily blocked the blow, but my elbows buckled slightly from the sheer power she swung with. Normally, I had a tendency to let my ego and bloodlust to get the best of me, but I would try my damnedest not to let that happen this time.

My eyes met the woman's own shimmering blue orbs as I let out a small chuckle. "Don't tell me that's the best you got, firebush!" I quickly slid the blade free from the wooden staff, pulled it back near my ride side, and quickly stabbed towards the woman's thin midsection.

[Karuka]

"If you're a barn, your granary is empty and your livestock plague-ridden."

I saw her stab coming a mile away, and I stepped to the side a little bit so that the blade wouldn't touch anything vital, but would catch my sleeve. The blade was only steel, so I had a point I wanted to make.

Her blade yanked fiercely on the vlince cloth, but didn't puncture. It wanted to, though, and if I let her get away with too much, it'd likely get dangerous. She didn't need to know that, though. I just needed to make her feel that she was outmatched so far that she'd never stand a chance. I'd felt that way so many times that I wanted the power of seeing the defeat in my enemy's eyes before I smashed her into her own damn lava pit.

Since she was so close, I stepped back just a little bit and swung my staff toward her head with all my might. If I got in a solid blow now, it would likely knock her out. Then the battle would end and I could get out of this heat. I doubted she'd be able to get away from the blow clean. Her katana had a much shorter reach than my staff gave me, and I intended to use every inch against her.

Sweat had gathered uncomfortably on my neck and dribbled down my face and into my eyes, and as I moved the droplets splashed from the ends of my hair, only to turn to steam before they could hit the ground. If the battle wasn't killer, the over-done arena definitely was.