Namazu (OPEN)

[Ulysses]

Open! And good luck to whoever becomes my opponent. ^^ Hopefully this will be fun!
So much pain. So much blood. So much fear.

Ulysses stumbled up the steps to the Citadel, struggling to keep consciousness. He kept getting flashes of battles long past, so many of them! So much violence had occurred in this building, the residue of it was killing him. His head pounded fiercely.

Even in his state of pain, he was impressed. The Citadel itself was a magnificent building, massive battlements jutting into the sky and a swarm of warriors from every different people in the world. He would probably be able to appreciate it better if his head didn’t hurt so damn much. It felt like someone was pounding into his skull with a hammer.

He stumbled in the doorway to the Citadel and fell to the ground. A monk in a brown robe ran over to him, a worried expression on his face. The monk began to speak, but Ulysses barely caught any of it as he faded into unconsciousness. He caught one word, though, before he fainted. Cydonia.


* * *

When he awoke, he was laying in a bed in a small stone room. A monk was standing over him, looking worried. Ulysses sat up. His head felt clear and his headache was gone, thankfully.

“Ah, you’re awake,” the monk said. Ulysses nodded. That much was obvious. The monk's demeanor shifted from friendly to hostile in a matter of seconds. “You were a fool to come here. Newly reincarnated, barely in control of your skills? You should have given it a few more years of training, foolish boy.”

Ulysses blinked. He had no idea what the monk was talking about. “Huh?” was all he could manage.

“You’re the champion of the spirit Cydonia, are you not! Of course you’d be sensitive to the accumulated psychic energy of the Citadel’s past. You’re lucky it didn’t kill you.”

Now he understood. Ulysses thought quickly. It made sense that the Monks of Ai’Brone would know about him, and the spirits that lived inside him. It hadn’t been long ago that the Spirit of Cydonia (heroic virtue) had appeared to him on a fishing boat outside Scara Brae. The spirit had stolen Ulysses old name, given him a new one, and possessed him with the spirits of long-dead warriors from another universe. Since then Ulysses had been forced to abandon his life as a simple adventurer and take up the mantle of an adventurer. The Citadel had lured him here, or at least the part of him that wanted to be a hero. Its promise of glory and bloodshed was more than enough to make the spirits inside him want a part of the action.

“I see,” Ulysses said. “Well I feel better now.”

“Yes, thanks to our medical arts. That shouldn’t happen to you again, at least not within the walls of the Citadel. Of course, now we have another problem: since you’ve come here…you have to fight.”

Ulysses laughed. “That’s not a problem, that’s what I wanted!”

The monk shook his head. “You’re not ready. You are going to lose, and tragically. But nevermind, follow me.”

The monk left the corridor and Ulysses picked up his sword from where it was propped up against the wall and followed him. He tried to talk to the monk, but the monk would say nothing more. Eventually the monk stopped walking—they had arrived. The door the monk brought him to was simple and wooden. It had a silhouette of a catfish engraved on it, and a single word: NAMAZU, and a character that Ulysses couldn’t read: 鯰.

“What does that mean?” he asked the monk.

The monk shook his head and smiled. “I can’t tell you that. Now go in, warrior of Cydonia. And don’t disappoint us.”

Ulysses nodded and stepped through the door into the arena. The door and wall behind him vanished, and there was no sign that he was inside the Citadel at all. He was on a giant lily pad. The lily pad was about five feet across, and seemed to hold his weight well enough. In the center was a gigantic white flower in full bloom. Its sweet scent filled his nostrils, and he breathed in deeply. He looked around and surveyed the arena, eyes wide in amazement.

It was nighttime in the arena, but the battlefield was illuminated well enough by a scattering of stars. The arena itself appeared to be a large pond or lake, filled with a scattering of lily pads. The lily pads were close enough together that he could probably step from one to another fairly easily. He could see no edge to the lake, simply lily pads forever in every direction. Each pad had a blossoming flower on it, and each flower gave off a small amount of luminescence— enough to light the pad around it, but not the water. The stars reflected in the black water, and the effect created was one of no horizon, just an endless scattering of stars. Ulysses realized that there was no moon out; it must be a new moon. The lighting and the darkness made everything seem to be in black-and-white—the world had been washed of color.

He began to hop from pad to pad aimlessly. The lily pads were slick with water, and his feet soon were wet. He had to fight to keep his balance at some points. After some amount of time—he had no idea how long—he simply stopped and looked around. As beautiful as the surroundings were, he was clearly meant to have a battle here at some point. His opponent must be somewhere.

There was a splashing of water, and he turned just in time to witness an enormous fish emerge from the water. The fish leapt from the water, well over his head. It was a black catfish of enormous size—at least twenty feet from head to tail. Its whiskers trailed behind it, each one as long as an adult human. For a moment all thoughts of monks and battles left his head, and he was filled with pure childish awe. And Namazu flies, he thought, and a chill ran up his spine. The fish finished its jump and plunged into the water again with a plunk. Ulysses watched the ripples where it had submerged, apprehensive. What other monsters were under his feet right now? Falling into that water might be dangerous, even deadly.

He rubbed his hand on the hilt of his sword. It was a nervous tic he’d picked up from the Knight, one of the heroic spirits within him. The Knight, oddly enough, wasn’t the spirit within him that was reacting now though. It was the Ronin. Something about the battlefield had awoken the spirit…

His awe over the battlefield’s beauty was once more replaced by nervousness and excitement, and he waited for his opponent to appear.

Namazu flies…

[Allennia]

Abhorrash settled before the door he had been directed to and in silence, nodded politely to the monk guide as he pulled on the great chain to lift away the mahogany and iron wrought portcullis. The great pine doors swung inwards with a clamour. There was hidden strength beneath the undying age and wisdom on the old man’s face, one which was to be respected and nurtured. Abhorrash was under no illusion here that he had any power beyond snapping twigs and embracing pain in this arena. Beyond, presided by a fanfare of chill wind and dark skies rested his combat arena, and further beyond that, he hoped there was an answered to peal him up into the clouds of euphoric understanding.

As he walked into the arena he very quickly realised that there was little floor to speak of, he teetered on the first lily pad’s edge and took a sharp breath, eager to not plunge into the cold waters in his heavy and self-dooming armour. “What cursed abomination brought water to bear against a foe such as me?” He sighed and began unbuckling the restraints that held the vamplate in place, held the bracer and shin guards tightly to his legs.

Leaving his first line of defence in a neat pile on the lily pad, glowing eerily in the Basque of the strange bio luminescence it created, Abhorrash hopped to the second lily, and to the third, fourth and fifth. He looked out across the endless eternity of the lake and admired the beauty it conjured in mirroring the blanket of stars that hung falsely above. “Supreme diction over the enchantment and school of illusion,” he commented on the will of the monks which created the terrain, half in awe of his surroundings and half searching for his opponent.

At last, taking the staff mace tightly into one hand from its hanging position at his side and declaring his self with a polite cough, Abhorrash met the young men he was to fight in the service of their patriots, financial ministers or gods. He made no movement other than to rest his cold hand on the tip of the Unyielding Rose, thinking to himself about all that had transpired and all that would unravel in his encounter. For now, his rune hood remained up, covering much of his face except the nose down.

He was still unsure what machinations had brought him to the arena, but had heard people speak of its prominence from the very first moment he had set foot in Radasanth; it had a pull like iron ore buried in the earth, it attracted metallic things, blades, shields and brazen bandoleers. His pursuits in the forests of Concordia and the villages of Akashima all seemed so suddenly small, so obsolete. It seemed like this harrowed battle ground could be the cause of the disturbance to his land, the pull on a mind as noble and autocratic as the Red Son of Isould was so strong, he had to make sure it could not pull things of a considerably bigger scale.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, may our fortunes shine and our weapons caress the boundaries of battle – echoing through this harrowed night on wings of fear, grace and bounty. My name is Abhorrash, might I have the pleasure of knowing the title or preferred calling of my opponent?” He spoke in a clear and deep Coronian accent, but one that held an air of mystery and stout personal defences. In his eyes a fire burnt, and in his clenched hands, the sparks of magic arced invisibly along his veins.

He was ready, spurned to action by the history of all those Lords and Ladies of his house that had gone before him. All around them, the distant hum of crickets and stale air smothered his introduction with tension and uncertainty, and the waters around their lily pads rippled outwards like a finger tracing fate through the ether; the mage presumed it was the application of his weight onto the flower, but he was too aloof to realise that more monstrous things remained hidden in the crystalline depths.

[Ulysses]

The voice of his opponent rang out over the arena and goosebumps appeared on Ulysses’ neck. The man—the enemy—had a Coronian accent and his words were noble and refined. Ulysses nodded to himself. It sounded like an opponent he could have respect for.

His own voice sounded young and coarse in comparison. “I am Ulysses,” he shouted. “And, um, good luck?” he finished stupidly. He’d grown up in a poor fisherman’s family; he’d never learned social graces or refined speech. A while ago he’d spent some time with a member of one of the Noble Houses of Scara Brae—a certain Lord Drope—and he’d felt like a fish out of water.

He began to hop from lily pad to lily pad in the direction the voice had come from. He grasped the hilt of his sword, still sheathed, in one hand. His mouth was a thin line of determination. Hearing the voice of his opponent had awakened something within him. It made everything seem more real. Gone was the childish wonder he’d possessed before, now he was a focused warrior headed to battle. A large part of him was ecstatic. Here in the darkness, surrounded by cold water and probably enormous monsters, in a battle to the death with some stranger? Nothing about this would have appealed to him a few years ago, back in what he still thought of as ‘normal life,’ but now it seemed incredibly romantic. Striving against an opponent, putting his all into every swordsweep and pitting his own skill against that of another? It was appealing.

Inside him, the spirit of the Ronin awoke. The color bled out of his golden eyes, and they changed to a jade green—a change almost imperceptible in this lighting. An onlooker with magical ability might have seen the ghost of an image superimposed on Ulysses for the briefest moment: a tall warrior in exotic red armor and a grimacing mask, a backwards-sloping helmet and two blades. The Ronin was used to battling with two swords, so he would be at a disadvantage here. The spirit was silent, but Ulysses could feel his presence.

He spotted a figure in the distance. A few more lily pad hops and the man was visible, one or two more and he could see him well enough. He was wearing red robes covered in unfamiliar sigils, and carrying a strange weapon unlike any he had seen before. His stance was regal and experienced, and Ulysses was a little intimidated—but also excited. Ulysses covered some of the distance between them, until were only about fifteen feet apart—a mere three lily pads between them. Ulysses bowed deeply, eyes down, hands at his sides. It wasn’t a greeting he was familiar with, but something about the spirit of the Ronin within him made it seem proper.

Water rippled beside him, and he wasn’t sure if it was the wake of another giant fish, or simply his own shifting weight on the lily pad that caused it. He thought again of the carving on the door to the arena, and suddenly the voice of the Ronin rang out inside his head.

What was that? What was the word inscribed on the door? the Ronin asked, accent strange and voice sharp. It was odd having a voice come, not from his ears, but straight into his thoughts.

Namazu? Ulysses ventured, unsure what had caused this outburst. The Ronin was silent for a moment, then spoke more cautiously.

That is a word in the language of my homeland, The Ronin said. I have not heard it in a long time.

What does it mean? Ulysses thought. He kept his eyes on his opponent, not sure if this distraction was important or not.

Catfish, the Ronin said. Then he was silent.

Ulysses wasn’t surprised. He stood close to the center of the lily pad, next to its blossom. The dark water and its unfathomable depths made him nervous. He did not draw his sword, however, waiting for his opponent to make the first move. Nonetheless, held the hilt tightly in anticipation.

[Allennia]

“Good luck and salutations of victory to you also,” Abhorrash nodded politely, removing his hood at last like an executioner revealing his visage from beneath his nightmare cowl. “I am afraid I am somewhat tyrannical in battle, so I ask for two things from you.” He paused for effect, heaving learnt the impact of suspense in the debating chambers long ago. “Honesty, and unrelenting effort; give me all you possess, fight as if this were a real environ, devoid of the safety net that the monks of Radasanth claim they provide.”

The long drawn out silence of the night air crackled to life and Abhorrash too turned his attention to the uncertain waters below. He considered an attempt to draw upon its latent power during the course of their confrontation, but the visions in his mind of a great wall of symbols eluded him – to learn to wield another element here and now would be an effort he could not waste his strength on. “So, let us begin.”

With a direct and precise movement, the red mage brought his rod up and clasped it in both his hands, almost snapping from one stance to the other. He wasted no time or held no reservation about instigating proceedings, and stretched upwards onto his highest upright reaches. Hanging there he smiled, the stubble on his chin and the crow’s feet clawing from his eyes showing age where age did not matter. With a grunt, he brought the Rose down and pierced the lily pad with its heavy and reluctant weight.

Form, he began to recite, rocking up and leaping backwards as the foliage wobbled and the water glugged up through the hole. The insipid relation and structure of magic. He landed on the lily pad immediately behind him and ducked to his knees to brace the impact and distribute the weight. The water rippled and a little torrential wave spread out in a great circle, wobbling and rocking all the lily pads around it. The ruptured lily bobbed beneath the wave and fell down, sucked into the abyss like a dying faery, drowning in sorrow.

Sigil, he began a brief incantation, hoping that his feign movement would distract the swordsman long enough in steadying his own physical stability to catch him off guard. Simple doctrine to castigate magic from uncontrollable rage – scripture to bind the ether. “Alley!” Abhorrash unleashed the magical energies he had begun storing in his arms from the moment he had stepped into the arena and a fireball gushed forth, in a jet first, but forming a solid sphere of burning embers and flames as it darted across the expanding gap.

Pain, he continued, utilising the mantra of the academic to keep his focus keened on the casting and preparation of magic at its upmost. The recipient and acknowledgement of the transposition of ether into the real.

“Into fire…” he mumbled, his face momentarily illuminated by his handiwork. Behind a veil of amber, ochre and azure pigments, the red mage unleashed the precise flight of the Griffin, and the rage of his people’s insecurity. As the spell approached Ulysses he brought the rod up and over his head and rested it’s tip behind him. He crouched like a mandragora, coiled and ready to strike amidst a sea of unsteady safe holds and a patient, slow breathing that reeled the mage’s mind with clarity and adrenaline.

[Ulysses]

The fireball illuminated the night with hues of orange and yellow. For a moment everything was clearly illuminated: green lily pads, deep blue waters of fathomless depths. He thought he saw a black shape in the water, but maybe that was a trick of the light.

Ulysses stood in awe at his enemy’s magic, his limbs frozen in place as the flame hurled through the night. Eventually he managed to jerk his limbs into action and he dived to the lily pad on the right, but a moment too late. The fire caught the side of his left arm, and his vision went read with pain and heat. When he regained his senses, he was on the lily pad he’d dived toward, but his left arm was still in pain. He looked down and saw that his shirt-sleeve had been singed off, and the flesh was boiled and ugly. He felt lucky that it’d been his left arm and not his right—at least he’d be able to wield his sword still. He staggered to his feet. His opponent was clearly capable of magical power far beyond Ulysses’ own abilities.

You fool! the voice of the Ronin echoed inside his head. What kind of a warrior is not alert at all times? It was only through my intervention that you didn’t get cooked alive!

Ulysses shook his head, as though a fly was buzzing in his ears. He’d been caught off guard by the man’s magic, but it certainly wouldn’t happen again. He drew his sword with his right hand and smiled at the wicked sound it made coming out of its sheath. The mage had asked him to give unrelenting effort? He would. He may lose this battle, but let it not be said that he’d not given it his all.

Perhaps he wouldn’t be at as strong of a disadvantage as he would have thought, either. The man may be strong in his magical abilities, but could he wield that staff as effectively as Ulysses could his sword? It seemed doubtful. The monks surely wouldn’t truly pit opponents of vastly differing skill against one another, would they?

He raised his sword and pointed it at the mage, who was now crouching on a lily pad in a defensive pose. Ulysses made eye contact with his opponent. “Mage,” he shouted. “I will give you what you’ve asked, on my word as the champion of the heroic spirit Cydonia, but I hope you don’t come to regret it. All I ask is that you do the same.”

He leapt from the lily pad he stood on to the one in front of him, and then another. He allowed his wet feet to slide on the slick surface, and this actually allowed him to gain speed, although he sacrificed some balance through the maneuver. He sprinted straight for the mage, sword held ready to strike. His left arm still ached, but he ignored it and kept it at his side. After only a few moments he reached the pad the mage was crouched on, and he leaped onto it, swinging his sword wildly at his foe in the process.

Form, remember your form! the Ronin shouted within him, clearly dismayed by Ulysses’ rash technique, but it was too late to go back.

The battle-proper had begun.

[Allennia]

The conflict had begun indeed and as he moved in time with the wavering flotilla of lily pads, the Seventh Son of the Seventh Son of Isould watched and listened. Abhorrash swiftly began to take a liking to Ulysses as he came across as a man with heart, and those with heart were best left untempered and cautiously approached; admired from a distance, enjoyed from afar.

Fire could be found deep within such a torso beating away, awaiting for an aeon to be released in a shining star of fury. Abhorrash had no wish to unleash within the man running towards him any form of sudden expression of strength as he relied on the logical, the absolute, the empirical and predictable parts of behaviour - he was agog to the notions of chaos and disorder.

“I will do all I can to make this an experience worthy of the Citadel’s name, although I dare say the experience will be painful in many more ways than flesh and blood!” It was all a gentleman and noble could retort in such circumstances. The red-mage did not know Ulysses, and Ulysses did not know more of Abhorrash than the simple fact he possessed a magical talent. No doubt, in the man’s mind, he already believed the red robed man before him to be a fighter of will, not of steel resolve and prowess; such a foolish notion in underestimating your foes could land you death in a real world.

As Ulysses advanced and reciprocated Abhorrash’s request he smiled in realisation. He might not have been able to draw on the raw, immortal power of the water around them in the duration of the battle, but he could mimic its effects to stem the tide of the warrior’s weapon as it swiftly fell upon him. He waited for the right moment and as the sword came down, he brought the rod up and about to cross the blade pushing its own force, or so he hoped, back up into the arm of its wielder. It was a simple counter measure and a timed parry, for all his might relied on distance or the blunt application of the jewel studded tip of the Rose to a cranium. Neither of which he could achieve when drawn to such close quarters.

"Gruh," he gritted his teeth as his muscles tensed and he prayed for the right outcome. The Stoic Step may have been developed with the counter-weight of his armour in mind but he had to bear the shock and recoil himself without it.

To steel the moment and prepare his body for the undoubtable counter-thrust, he envisioned the flow of water down a mountain, slowly eroding it when all other elements do it little harm. This was the same ebb and flow, the same recoil and advance, the same echo of the nature all around them in his style and his defence.

[Ulysses]

Sword clanged against stave, swing was met with parry, attack met defense. The mage raised his stave and parried the sword’s blow, and though he shoved with all his strength, Ulysses found himself unable to break past the mage’s block. He gritted his teeth, grimaced, and pushed from his shoulders. The slick surface of the lily pad made it difficult to gain a good footing. The mage had an advantage being in the center of the pad, with Ulysses on the edge—there was always the danger of falling into the water, and gods only knew what dangers lay beneath the surface.

For a moment that seemed an eternity, mage and swordsman stood as such. Ulysses gazed into the others eyes, and was mystified by what he saw there. The mage seemed…calm? Perhaps that wasn’t quite the right word. His light blue eyes were filled with the serene power of the waterfall. Ulysses’ own eyes contained a growing fire. The calm jade-green of the Ronin’s eyes was corrupted by angry strains of gold. Adrenaline pumped into his veins and squirted its bitter taste into his mouth. It was important for a swordsman to keep his calm, he knew, that was something the Ronin always emphasized, but it was so difficult! The heat of the moment was so strong; Ulysses felt his emotions begin to get control of him. His stance shifted from a carefully calculated one, to one designed only to give him more brute force.

A flash of memory shot across his brain like a bolt of lighting. He saw himself standing at the edge of a pond, staring at a lily pad much like the one he was standing on now. The lily pad had a single lotus blossom on it, of unimaginable beauty. The overall message was one of calm, and peace.

Calm down! Control! Focus! the Ronin shouted, and Ulysses realized that the memory was one of the spirit's. The old warrior had probably sent it to his host to try to calm him down. Ulysses grunted in response, not really caring for the ancient hero’s advice.

He broke off the meeting of sword and stave, and stood panting for a moment. Then he began to sidestep to the left, trying to make his way towards the center of the lily pad they stood on. Standing on the edge, with only the opaque black water at his back, made him nervous.

“You’re strong,” he admitted to his opponent. Is he strong enough, though? he wondered. Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t.

Ulysses dived in again, and slashed wildly with his blade—the same trick he’d used a minute ago, hoping that the mage would falter in his parry this time. He could feel the Ronin’s dismay within him.

Strength isn’t everything, child. the Ronin said, now more exasperated than angry. If you get yourself killed, you’ve no one to blame but yourself. Ulysses just spread his lips in a mad grin that displayed his canines prominently.

[Allennia]

Ulysses withdrew after the pang of sound slowly died away, circling the mage with enthusiasm abound. Abhorrash remained in his crouched stance with his rod still held upright and wavering with the weight pressing down on his tingling shoulder. The folds of his robes moved as he kept his own gaze on his opponent’s, each minute adjustment in his form coming from a resolute patience. As the swordsman commented on the strength of his deflection, the mage stood upright slowly and stepped back to the edge of the lily.

“As are you good sir, but strength is not only in the pandering of steel against steel, it holds facets in the mind, in the soul, and in the ability to judge.” Judging his opponent was indeed what Abhorrash was strong in, the speed and untrained eye in Ulysses attack had given the mage an opportunity to adapt and think on how to overcome the odds. It was a well known fact, that the faster an object struck water or fell at height onto a still pool, the greater the ripple and splash and the greater the damage.

On cue the sword darted forward but somehow it was more adept and thrifty with its application, as if something had inspired the boy to greater heights of accuracy and technique. With a grunt and a full spiral Abhorrash whirled his body around with his arms and his rod at waist level; with the grace of a dervish and symmetrical waves of crimson it struck the blade once more with a full centrifugal force behind it, which would no doubt knock it aside out of harm’s way - but it was not strong enough to disarm the boy entirely.

“Good!” He shouted, to mask his sudden welling sense of fear. Not wanting to take a chance he dropped the Rose and let it’s gemmed head touch the lily. Conjuring the grace of the Griffon he aspired to be, he leapt backwards and let loose the Tailwind of Agatha. Unseen movements and clouds whistled down and lifted him on angelic wings of air; he landed delicately and upright on a pad fifteen feet or so away and smiled, a waft of pollen and jasmine filling the arena and sweeping away the stagnation of the eternal lake around them.

The downward gust and the sudden offsetting of balance on Ulysses's platform came as Abhorrash’s response to the man’s sword strike. If anything, it brought the mage distance and time to think carefully about his approach to a tricky opponent. He begun to see why the Citadel had called so many to the city, and why it’s dusty brandistock and its hallowed halls were a place of wonder; alike to those of the Council Chamber, or the lofty heights of the Windlacer Mountains he had heard so much about.

“Come to me, let us see how you take and repose to the flames of manna, and the stratification of a sceptred son.” He wiped his mouth and brow to remove the signs of fatigue and waited for Ulysses to recover and re-approach, magical energies swirling down from his chest into his rod and mind once more as he prepared his last offensive.

[Ulysses]

The mage deflected Ulysses’ blow, seemingly without trouble, and then took a massive leap backwards onto a nearby lily pad.

Ulysses fought to keep his balance. His sword arm swung out of control, but he maintained his grip on his weapon and avoided being disarmed. The mage had summoned some sort of gust of wind, and that caused the lily pad to rock back and forth and tremble dangerously in the water. The footing below was slippery, and Ulysses finally lost his balance and fell backwards into the gigantic luminescent blossom.

He couldn’t breathe. He was suffocating in pollen; the sickly sweet scent filled his lungs and nostrils. He tried to choke or cough but was unable to. Darkness clouded the edge of his vision, and when he looked up he saw the red-armored spirit of the Ronin standing above him. The Ronin’s mask was off, and for the first time Ulysses saw his face: solemn and quiet.

Foolish child, the Ronin said. Learn.

The Ronin said no more, but Ulysses was suffused with images and understanding. The blossom he was now inside was the first image, followed by a sequence of others. The Ronin himself, clad in armor. The mage Ulysses was battling, raising his staff to block, the serenity behind his eyes. Then Ulysses saw himself, or a silhouette of himself floating in the darkness. He saw himself as he appeared to others, or at least to the Ronin. He saw his own golden eyes, and a…a lotus blossom? Inside his chest, there was a glowing flower, delicately unfolding its golden light—similar to the one he was currently inside.

Then he understood what he’d been doing wrong. He stopped fighting to breathe, and stepped up out of the blossom and onto the edge of the lily pad. The mad grin was gone from his face, and his mouth was a tight line of concentration. He’d let himself be consumed by his passion and rage, but that was a mistake. Depending only on strength and raw anger was a mistake. The mage had been able to deflect his attacks because of this.

Now he stood in a much more controlled, defensive stance. He held his sword out straight before him, perpendicular to the depthless waters below and pointed straight at his opponent. The sweet scent of the blossom was still in his nostrils, but he could breathe deeply now.

“Enough running away, mage,” Ulysses said. His voice was calm and confident. “Why don’t you give me what you’ve got? Unless you’re too afraid to, that is. You asked me to give my best, but I don’t think you’ve done the same, have you?”

Once again his eyes were a delicate jade green, the angry traces of gold gone. The Ronin was pleased, because finally Ulysses understood him. The secret to the Ronin’s technique wasn’t nobility and honor, like the Knight—or energy and passion like the Gunslinger. It was the calm stillness of a pond, the delicate unfolding of a lotus blossom: the Ronin’s strength wasn’t in powerful, offensive blows, but in using an opponent’s strength against him through parrying and dodging.

Ulysses stood on the lily pad awaiting his opponent’s onslaught, feet positioned securely, sword held before him. His left arm was drooped at his side. He was badly burnt and it pained him, but he tried not to let the pain get to him. Soon, hopefully, this battle would be over.

And beneath his feet, the ancient and great fish known only as Namazu circled eagerly, awaiting the first blood to spill into his watery home.

[Allennia]

Almost as soon as Ulysses goaded, Abhorrash obliged his request. He stepped wide and rested his weight onto a firm stance, and then placed the rod before him at arm’s length. “I have not unleashed the full extent of my powers, however lacklustre and learned they may be, because I value the momentum of battle, more so than the fulfilment of war itself.” He would stretch himself to his limits, if not beyond, and for once in his life be reckless, be emotional, be part of rage itself.

He vented the magical energy he had collected whilst he waited and pushed it into the gems embedded into the Rose, chanting in low-tongue as he did so. A few seconds passed before the manna took its hold but as it did, he withdraw his palms from about the width of the metallic stave and it remained; levitating on the pulse of the winds of change. “I am not…afraid. I have witnessed things graver and darker than this place you have conjured, you might instead consider it subjective caution. It is true-” he paused to spin the staff slowly, waving his hands inward and outward as if he were controlling a marionette, “-that I am aware that you can bring me pain. I am aware and fearful of suffering, but I hold nothing back.”

A thin sliver appeared along the rod half embedded in its form, half revealed with each rotation. A single fireball would require too much momentum, too much opportunity for recovery so if Ulysses required more of Abhorrash effort, vigils, and righteous unveiling - then the noble would oblige with something he had never considered. “Brace yourself; for I shall throw all I have remaining in my talent as a mage. If you should survive, then I am at the mercy of your sword. If I should fail, then I have not learnt as much from my master as I thought – I will return to learning, more so than the eternal lesson that is life…”

His breath formed wisps of mist as all the heat was absorbed from the tendrils of ether, and the rod span quicker and quicker about the magical tear. Very swiftly Abhorrash felt the tension form in his muscles, rippling up his arms as he struggled to contain the energy he was gathering and channelling through the vestige of his power. A sphere of distortion formed around him and his robes fluttered upwards, as if the forces of motion were running amok. It stopped time within the sphere for a split second and then cracked and fell apart. As it imploded it rushed into the tip of the rod and a small conflagration of incandescent radiance erupted about the rod’s crystalline tip.

It burnt brightly, like a torch held to the kindling of discovery and Abhorrash span the rod quicker and quicker and quicker still. “I…” he braced himself for the sudden transferral of energy between his form, the rod, and the barrage of fire he was gathering. “Reveal – my strength!” He let it go, and dropped to his knees as all the severance of the exiled gods came to bear on his shoulders.

The rod stopped spinning and the flame seemed paralysed for just a moment, growing in the split-seconds before so bright that it was white enough to blind in even the brightest of heavens. Three raging fireballs rushed towards Ulysses as time caught up with it - the rod dropped to the lily pad before the exhausted mage, shining in the dim and eerie glow of the blue plume at it's centre.

“Let it shine like a beacon of honesty.”

Like a tri-partite declaration of finality the fireballs converged on Ulysses, each as simply formed as the first he had conjured but together, they possessed a greater decorum and power than their individual parts. It had cost him all of his manna, and severed his mind from the ether for now but it was what was asked of him, and what he had promised. In their wake, the lily pads around Abhorrash’s own span and wobbled and glittery specks of light drifted through the air, like embers falling after a volcano’s eruption, like ash falling down from a pallid sky.

He only hoped it was enough to weaken the swordsman; to level the blatant lack of skill and defence in the Lord of Isould’s repertoire.



I have compiled all of Abhorrash's remaining charges for his fireball spell into a single attack, unless you have any objections. Feel free to have one or all or none strike you, bearing in mind they are only as strong as his current profile indicates, and Abhorrash is now severely fatigued and unable to use any further spells.

[Ulysses]

First one, then two, then three fireballs lit up the night with their arcane flames. His only option was to dodge. Instead of jumping to the left or right, however, he dived forwards onto the lily pad in front of him, then rolled and leapt to his feet. The fireball carried over his head and struck the lily pad he had been standing on only a moment before, it struck the blossom and lit it on fire. The flower became a flaming torch in the darkness.

Ulysses got to his feet just in time to sidestep the second fireball. It grazed his left arm more, and the wound from earlier became a searing hell of pain. Ulysses winced and tears formed in his eyes. The flesh on his left arm was blackened.

The third fireball was headed straight towards him, and he didn’t have time to dodge. An image passed through his head of a man passing his hand over a candle flame: if the man moved his hand fast enough, he wouldn’t be burnt. Maybe it was a stupid idea, but it seemed to be his only option. Ulysses grimaced and faced the flame head on, then leapt forward through it, aiming for the lily pad in front of him. As he jumped he swung his sword before him, and this seemed to diffuse the orb of fire a bit. There was a brief moment of unbearable heat, and flames licked at his torso and neck, heating the chainmail on his body to a painful degree. Then he passed through the flame onto the other side, and he was standing on the lily pad.

His shirt was on fire. He shrugged it and the chainmail off quickly, and he was standing with no shirt and only his pants. He looked down at himself and saw that he was burnt almost everywhere on his chest and stomach—plus the dark skin, crisp skin on his left arm. The pain was severe, but bearable. He separated it from himself, quarantined in his mind what truly didn’t matter and this allowed him to go on. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could make it, though: probably only a few minutes. The urge to jump in the water surrounding him was strong. It would feel so cool and gentle, so pleasant when his body felt so hot and ugly. Perhaps he would do that, when he defeated the mage, and nevermind the dangers of the water below. He would have to fight on for just a little bit more though.

He felt the Ronin smile within him, as if the spirit was admiring his endurance of pain.

“Your magic is impressive, mage,” Ulysses said. “But let’s see if your skill with that stave will match my sword.”

He sprinted to the lily pad the mage stood on—only a few feet away now—and feinted to swing wildly from the side, as he had before. At the last moment, however, he pulled back and jabbed straight at the mage’s abdomen—sacrificing brute strength for accuracy and speed. Hopefully the misdirection of the feint would distract the mage enough to allow this move to strike.

The skin all over his body sent red-hot, ugly messages of pain to his brain, and Ulysses desperately hoped the legendary healing skills of the monks were all they were reputed to be. Even for the next few minutes, he wasn’t sure how much longer he could take this amount of pure pain.

[Allennia]

Abhorrash rose just too late to sweep the blade from left to right, too tired and drained to roll for his rod. The flash of cold steel juxtaposed the burning cinders and remains of Ulysses's pride, and he felt a similar, if more focussed rush of pain. He looked down and saw the tip of the sword piercing his abdomen and frowned, such a thought was illogical, his defeat - inconceivable.

"No," he said, rather too simply. He meant it as a reply to the man's question, that his skill clearly did not match that of his magical learning but arrogance tended to override sensibilities in the heat of the moment. He slumped back and took a cautious retreat to heart, using Ulysses's pause and realisation that he'd struck home to scoop up the Rose with one hand, and clutch at his bleeding wound with the other. He fingers encircled the sword's cold metal. From the feel of things and his brief lecture on the anatomy of a man, it did not appear to have caused any lasting harm.

"That," he gritted his teeth, "was an impressive recovery, and an equally impressive penetration of my ruse." He swung the rod eagerly and kicked forwards with the last fleeting moment of hope that remained. As he approached he stomped down his right foot as it came up, spun around sideways with the rod skipping to full extension and swarming in the centrifugal force that some might call gravity. Such was the impact and motion that even Abhorrash reeled from the nausea.

The Unyielding Rose sung a whoosh to live up to it's name, aimed straight and blunt and impossibly strong at the young man's head - just as fate and tactics had foreshadowed. It was all the mage had left and as he spun, gobbets of red ochre blood escaped between his fingers and sped away. They disturbed the water only slightly, to rile and rouse the creatures that stirred stealthily below with the scent of war, of hunger, of the Nazamu's whim.

[Ulysses]

The stave struck Ulysses straight in the middle of his forehead, and he felt like he’d been hit with a rock. He fell backwards, legs not even buckling beneath him. He fell like a plank. His sword was plunged into the mage’s abdomen, and he lost his grip on its hilt as he fell backward.

Cold. The water was icy cold, and rather than being refreshing, it just made the burns all over his body sting more than ever. He kept his eyes open, and saw a few droplets of blood drifting in the water. He knew how to swim perfectly well but…he felt so tired. The blow to his head had very nearly knocked him unconscious; in fact, he felt as though he almost was halfway knocked out. He started sinking, making only the slightest effort to wave his limbs and swim to the surface. He fell further and further, and it felt more like he was falling into a pit of darkness than sinking in water. Far above he could see the lights of the lotus blossoms dimly flickering, mixed in with the starlight and making one great field of tiny pinpricks of light.

He felt motion to his left, and swirled around in the water, alarmed. There was a dark shape moving in the water, but he couldn’t make it out in the dim light. He didn’t need to make it out, though, he knew what it was. He even knew its name. Namazu.

He started trying to swim upwards, but then knew it was useless. For the first time he felt the strain on his lungs that being underwater—it felt as though he was burning on the inside and out.

Now he was face to face with the great fish. He waited for it to dart forward and eat him, but it did not. Namazu simply stared at him, its face unreadable and solemn. Then it spoke to him. Not with words, but with thoughts and images in his head. Ulysses was filled with knowledge of the great fish and its life. It was thousands of years old, maybe tens of thousands, maybe even older than that. It had been here before the Citadel, before the monks, before any humans at all. This place was a place of the fish and the fish alone, and though the occasional humans trespassed in its domain, it was Namazu that tolerated their presence, not the other way around.

His lungs were aching now, and he felt darkness cloud at the edge of his vision. He was going to pass out soon. The fish nodded at him and opened its mouth. Its eyes glowed a brilliant white, and Ulysses realized that he was face to face with a creature of great magic and wisdom. He'd feared a monster in the depths, but what he found was a sage.

He surrendered himself to it. Namazu swam forward and swallowed him whole, and then there was only darkness. Before he passed out, he thought he saw a single thing, one final image: a glowing, white lotus blossom, in the heart of the fish.

Maybe, however, that was only a trick of the light.


* * *

Later, he awoke in the Citadel’s healing wing, his burns and wounds gone. The monks complimented him on a battle well fought, returned his sword to him and Ulysses smiled graciously. Still, his mind wasn’t so much on the strange Coronian mage he had battled, or the injuries he’d received—but the strange fish he’d met at the very end. Namazu had showed him something, he thought, but he’d only really caught a glimpse of it. What had it meant?

He thought the Ronin knew, but he didn’t dare to ask.

[Allennia]

Nazamu consumed the spoils of war and down into shadows Ulysses went. In the lethargy and victimisation Abhorrash pushed at his mind, he imagined Jurran standing over him, even in his pupil’s glory strikingly telling him that he had won nothing, gained nothing, come to understand nothing. Then the mage heard only nothing, the nagging and the lecture fading into the distance like the stars above.

Silence.

It descended over the lake once more as the waves, disturbed so violently by Ulysses’s fall settled at last. Abhorrash had dropped to his knees after realising he was victorious but time had left him fleetingly day dreaming in the pain and agony that enveloped his senses. He panted slowly but painfully, and it dawned on him that the blade had pierced a lung.

The glowing flowers that littered the surface of the water blurred altogether into a blanket of glowing lights and halcyon days and the mage dropped the rod, abounding with it his tension, hopes and dreams. “So close yet so far, so near yet so distant. How can I have won when I feel such loss?” He mumbled the ramblings of a fool to the ether and let out a long sigh of defeat. Whilst the victor remained in the arena and the loser rested in the heart of darkness beneath the chill abyss, Abhorrash once more felt as if the lesson learnt had been one at his expense, not Ulysses.

Something made him pluck the glowing flower from the centre of the lily pad, and he spun it between his fingers. He smiled, admiring it's beauty long enough for something to spark at the back of his mind, and speak to him of white blossoms and possibilities. This was the second sign that the problem with the Council was organic, that it was organic...first the Rowan, now the Lotus.

He took a hold of the sword’s hilt with both hands and tried to relax by slowing his breathing, each time he inhaled a sharp pain rocked his spine. An even sharper wave hit him as he pulled on the blade and unsheathed it from his torso; he yelped, wavered in a death throe, and fell forwards into a dark world of his own – uninspired by the revelation that he still had so much to learn.

---

Abhorrash walked down the steps that lead away from the Citadel and embraced the cold light of a murky Spring morning. He felt refreshed and alive once again, the craft of the Monk's flawless in design. He carried his rod and his spell book in his arms and was already buried in the Emancipation of Magic Arcana Vol 1. He looked up briefly to catch sight of a familiar face and smiled. Whilst fate had a fickle way of bringing passers by together once more, and of making strange unions become more pertinant than they first appeared, he had much work to do and much remained to be explained to dwell on their confrontation now.

He nodded at the boy politely, and strode on, his timely steps flicking up his crimson robes with every precise movement in his advance. He came across regal and refined, but ultimately he was betrayed by the uncertainty and fear in his eyes, even as they were hidden by the runic hem of his hood.

But for now, The Red-Mage of the Seven had bigger fish to fry.


Spoil:

Illuminated Lotus - a glowing Lotus flower which has a permanent luminescence, equivalent to a small candle in a dark room, only blue. Has no value, other than sentimental, or as a light source, or perhaps in a future incantation of some-sort.

Sub-Skill To Red Mage - Over Drive - once per thread, can condense all charges or uses of a single spell into one stronger or more numerable casting. Drains all manna for remainder of thread, requires permission to use - does not increase strength, only scale, similar to Expand or Enlarge Spell in Dungeons and Dragons.

[Taskmienster]

Namazu: Oooh, a battle. I’m gonna work with the regular rubric, light to medium commentary for both of you. If you have questions or concerns just feel free to PM me and I’ll help as much as I can.



Ulysses

Continuity 7
:: Your opening post was well done, enough background to really understand the character well. I would suggest that you give a little bit more of a goal though, such as why it was that you stumbled into the Citadel in the first place. I guess it was to battle, but why would you come to a place that overwhelmed you so thoroughly? That was really my only question about the goal of the thread, that never had enough explanation.
Setting 6
:: The setting seemed rather dull in how it was presented. I’d suggest giving it something more, making it more alive. Setting is an easy, convenient, and simple way to put in more advanced technique. Your comment about how the lights looked like stars on the dark water was a perfect example of that. However, the vast majority of what you started out with seemed really to the point.
Pacing 7
Dialogue 6.5
Action 6.5
Persona 7
Technique 5
Mechanics 8
Clarity 6.5
Wild Card: 7

Score: 66.5

Abhorrash

Continuity 6
Setting 6.5
Pacing 7
Dialogue 7
Action 6
Persona 7
Technique 6.5
Mechanics 7.5
:: A couple slip ups here and there with word usage, such as using “men” instead of “man”.
Clarity 6
:: Sometimes your writing style is so thick with technique that it actually detracts from the flow and understanding of what is written.
Wild Card 7

Score: 66.5


Rewards:

WOW, a tie. Didn’t see that coming when I was putting up the scores. However, it’s well earned by both. I’m going to give you both a little less than winner’s exp but more than a tie’s exp gain, simply because it was a very well written battle. Ulysses, you gained a bit more gold because you didn’t request any spoils.

Ulysses :: 375 exp | 200 gold

Abhorrash :: 375 exp | 125 gold
((Spoils requested are approved. I would, however, just caution you with the Over Drive thing.))

[Taskmienster]

Exp and GP addddddeeedddddd.