View Full Version : Not Even Penguins Could Appreciate This
Closed to Duffy Bracken. Good luck!
Years had passed since the mage had been to Radasanth.
It hadn’t changed a bit.
The storefront still featured the same shops, the same bars. Throngs of people still pushed through the streets, rudely jostling and elbowing others out of the way. Travelling vendors still hawked a variety of goods from their carts, trying desperately to convince the people that they just had to buy their wares. Atzar stood with his back to them, facing instead an institution that would outlast it all: the Citadel. The massive structure towered above the rest of the city, stone spires striving to touch the very heavens. The mage gazed at the palatial edifice, from its highest towers to its great granite steps, taking everything in.
“Well?” the creature at his side questioned, looking up at him. Atzar regarded the small figure. His name was Zirkan. His azure scales glimmered in the afternoon sunlight, and his teeth and claws were sharp as razors. He was every inch a dragon – a pygmy dragon no more than three feet tall, but a dragon nonetheless. What he lacked in size, he made up for with a sarcastic, acidic tongue.
“Well what?”
“Aren’t you going to… you know… go in? What’s the holdup?” The mage returned his attention to the giant building. Zirkan was right; there was a holdup, and it was a very simple one: Atzar was afraid.
He had only been in the Citadel once before, about three years ago. He still remembered her visage as if it was yesterday: Clothing of black leather; lines of deep violet paint on her pale cheeks; scarred, vampiric wings on her back. In a dark sort of way, she would have been beautiful… had it not been for the twin daggers she held in her hands. He could still remember the flashes of pain, the sickening sound of slithering steel as it ripped into flesh and muscle and -
“Hey! Am I gonna need to hold your hand?” Zirkan’s tone was impatient now. Atzar’s attention returned to the present, but not before the grisly memory sent chills up and down his spine. He was much stronger now – that was certain – but his encounter with Witchblade was not one he cared to repeat. Even so, the mage mounted the stairs up to the vast interior of the Citadel.
***
The conversation with the monks had been brief and uneventful; in no time, the wizard found himself in front of a great iron door. All the strongest men in the world shouldn’t have been able to budge the massive slab of metal, yet when Atzar turned its handle, it opened as easily as the cover of a book. As soon as he opened it, a blast of icy wind struck him, bringing goosebumps to his bare arms.
It was an inhospitable place, to say the least. The mage stared into the teeth of a raging blizzard. Frigid, howling winds whipped the snow in every direction, blinding Atzar and his companion to anything more than a few yards distant. His heart sank; the monk had taken his request more literally than he had meant it. He had wanted a snowstorm, but this… no being on Althanas could survive in that rampaging whiteout for long.
Zirkan shared his despair, and he laughed a cynical laugh. “Your plan backfired, didn’t it?” the blue dragon said bitterly, matching the mage’s gaze into the storm.
“Yeah.”
“We’re going to be miserable, aren’t we?”
“You have a great talent for pointing out the obvious.”
“I thought you were smarter than this, Atzar. I really did.”
The wizard shot his disgruntled companion an irritated look. “Spare me,” he retorted. “Just remember our plan.”
With that, he trodded grudgingly out into the blizzard, his arms crossed tightly over his chest for warmth. The dragon snorted angrily but followed him in. The creature unfolded its wings and took to the air, disappearing from view almost immediately.
Give me a blizzard, he had asked of the monks; they had given him one unlike anything he could have possibly been prepared for. With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, the mage recalled the other part of his request. Just then, the wall came into view through the storm. It was made entirely of ice, and it reached perhaps twenty feet into the air. The wind had already begun to pile snow up at its base, and the droves would only get bigger.
An ice maze.
Atzar could only imagine what the monks had done to exaggerate that part of his demand. Traps of all sorts of barbaric designs flitted through his imagination, each worse than the last. Just as the wind sucked the heat from his body, so did the foreboding wall of ice deprive him of all hope. The mage even went so far as to turn around, eyes searching for the great iron door by which he had entered, but it was no use; there was nothing behind him but an endless waste of driving snow. To search for that door would be to wander aimlessly until the weather brought a frigid, numbing demise.
Instead, the mage turned and followed the ice wall. He disappeared into the whirling snow, searching for a way into the maze.
Duffy was cold, excessively so. He had wandered into the maze only fifteen minutes before his opponent and already he cursed the day he ever set foot in it. His demi-cloak of wool and rabbit flock was no match for the embittered fighting ring, try as he might deflect it with his hands crossed over his chest. As the icy walls grew taller, and the natural light from the enchantments overhead became ever the bluer in colour, the thief felt a deep sense of foreboding, one that usually spelt danger.
His lips and teeth chattered, and his eyebrows had gathered frosty accruements, but in the inner echelons of their battlefield, he began at least to feel a reprieve from the blizzard. After what seemed like half an hour, he turned the fortieth corner, and let out a long sigh of relief as the jagged ice divides gave way momentarily to form a small circular safe-haven, devoid of wind and snow or cold. As he half skipped and half bounced into its centre, Duffy made a smell blessing to whatever gods had afforded him the luxury of being able to see straight and feel his toes. Unbeknownst to him, this small arena, no more than a hundred feet wide was one of many hidden in the maze, one of many mental traps to steal hope and victory away from the combatants. If one didn't die on a sword, one would die curled up and defeated by the primal forces of nature herself.
“I ain’t goin’ on,” he mumbled, rubbing his lips with his sleeve to try and rekindle their former enthusiasm for trash talking and mouthing off. His trip to Radasanth thus far had gone swimmingly, and this was his fourth encounter in the Citadel this time around, following the duel with the one named Maximillian, the melee with Lorenor and his pawns, and the incident with the pond…he vowed that this endeavour would not end in pain, or heartache, or a combination of the two. “No,” he personified his thoughts, “it’ll end on my terms.”
In the little knot carved out by the howling gale, forged in the maze like a groove in a white rapid rock the winds subsided long enough for Duffy to hear his own thoughts. The smell of water and salt had gone momentarily, and he admired the scintillating patterns on the polished deep blue walls set here and there into the ice. It gave the place the illusion of age and great cracks and deep black shadows hinted at things perhaps best left undisturbed, frozen in time and place in an aura of silence that broke the soul. He snapped back to his line of thought and picked up the pace.
It’s just a shame, he continued, trudging towards the exit on the opposite side to the one he had entered, that those terms do not involve waiting around. His heavy boots scraped him forwards, searching for the man or woman or beast he had come to settle an unspoken score with. It was fortunate that he had left his Tinder Gear at home – it’s delicate pipes would have frozen in seconds leaving him nothing more than his daggers and katana to fight off his opponent, and his summery attire fit only for Ludhiana Prayer to stem the onslaught of the embittered tundra lattice.
"Oh," Duffy chided himself, "that's exactly all you've got..."
He’d lost all track of time. Perhaps only a few minutes had passed since he found the entrance to the maze; perhaps he had wandered its crystalline corridors for an hour. Atzar didn’t know. Indeed, at that moment the only thing the mage did know was cold. It numbed his face, his hands, his thoughts. His shoes crunched with every step in the snow, yet he had long since lost all feeling in his feet.
The labyrinth did, however, offer a slight relief from the weather. It was still very cold, and snow still fell heavily, but at least the mage was sheltered from the wind that whistled overhead. Every breath steamed in the frosty air as he followed the gently curved passageway, trying vainly to rub some feeling back into his frozen fingers. The path broke into three forks ahead of him, and the wizard turned left and trudged on.
“Atzar!” The voice came from above, and the mage looked up in time to see Zirkan materialize out of the blizzard and descend down into the maze. The blue dragon landed and immediately began hopping from one foot to the other and flapping his wings wildly in an effort to restore some warmth into his thin body. Under different circumstances, the wizard would have found the peculiar dance hilarious; now, the cold had deprived him of his sense of humor, and he watched dully.
“I can’t fly anymore,” the dragon stated finally. “Not up there. The wind is too strong, I almost crashed like twenty times.”
Atzar nodded; couldn’t blame the poor creature. “Did you see anybody?” he asked.
The blue creature shook his head. “This maze is huge, and I can’t see well in all that snow. I was really lucky to even find you.”
The mage swore. His plan had all but fallen apart. He’d thought Zirkan would give him a huge advantage in the battle, that the creature would be able to scout the maze and find his quarry so Atzar could set up an ambush. It was supposed to be easy. The monks, however, had other ideas.
“I’ll just stay with you instead,” the dragon said. “By the way, this way leads to a dead end – I noticed that when I found you.”
The mage stared at him for a moment, and then turned his gaze upward, frustration written plainly on his face. Anything else you want to throw at me? he demanded silently of the bleak, uncaring sky. When he received no answer, he turned around and stamped back the way he had come, choosing a different path when he passed back through the intersection.
They had trudged through the snow in silence for awhile before Zirkan stopped. Atzar looked back at him questioningly. “What-?”
“Shh!” the dragon hissed quietly. “I thought I heard something.”
The mage stopped and listened. The howling wind dominated his aural sense, drowning out all other noise, and he shrugged at his companion. “Nothing,” he whispered.
“There.” Zirkan looked at the mage. “Footsteps. You can’t hear it?” Atzar shook his head, but the dragon spread his wings anyway. “Somebody’s nearby,” he breathed. “Keep going the way you’re going – I’m gonna see if I can find him.” Without another word, he shot ahead, flying somewhat below the top of the frozen walls.
The wizard stared after his winged friend, bewildered. But he couldn’t hear anything! Another moment of listening revealed no new sounds. Could Zirkan’s ears be more sensitive than his own? Atzar had no way of knowing; shrugging to himself, he continued down the icy path. He had no choice but to trust his partner.
Dust in Gravity…Duffy muttered, reciting lines from plays and songs to keep his head on the level as he surged on through the folds of snow and ice. They mocked his own blades, standing upright and sharper than his weapons ever would, but too far to clash and too far to parry. He lost all track of time and soon he began to lose feeling in his toes, fingers and other unmentionable extremities. He knew all too well that if he did not find something or someone to hit soon, he would succumb to the draining tendrils of the weather and be defeated before he could leave the ground.
Then he heard a familiar sound, the sound of footsteps. He froze, craning his neck to one side and cupped his hand over his ear. “Yes…” he muttered, re-assuring his ego that he was not going mad just yet. Somebody was approaching around the bend in the pathway, someone who had no doubt by now heard Duffy’s footsteps, and was doing the exact same thing he was if they had any sense. A tingle of excitement ran down his spine and acted as a blanching heat wave, a surge of temperate feeling to rekindle his movement and drive. He pushed himself into the wall that connected around the corner and very slowly, but very surely, snooped up to the corner proper and peered around, looked beyond the precipice at what approached.
Disappointment hit Duffy, just long enough for the small figure overhead to come as a surprise to him. Whilst he might have preferred one opponent, the sight of two, even blurred and frigid as they were was a welcoming challenge. Not one to shy away from conflict, he simply strode out into plain view; staying level with his getaway should anything volatile come his way. “It’s a terr’ble day for a confrontation, wouldn’t ya say?” He had to shout to be heard over the gale dropping down from overhead and the occasional deep-sonic crack as the ice shifted and broke all around them, but it reached its recipient. He stood and adjusted his spine, and hopped left and right, the sure-tell sign that the Tantalum was ready for the opening act.
Grinning apologetically at his opponent’s introduction, Atzar shrugged. “The monks got a little excited, I think,” he laughed above the wind. “I asked for a little flurry and a maze made of ice, and they gave me… this.” He waved one numbed hand at the world around them, the towering barriers, the shrieking gale, the ankle-deep snow. The banter was harmless, idle, meant to be a distraction; meanwhile, Zirkan silently rose above the maze, disappearing from sight.
The mage appeared completely at ease; he looked for all the world like a young man who’d never fought in his life. His lack of armor was evident - instead, he sported a plain tunic and pants, both slightly damp from melted snow. His hands held no weapon, but instead rubbed together for warmth. The rueful smile was still on his face, but the mind behind that simple expression was working feverishly. He had a good idea of what the dragon was up to; he would let Atzar engage the enemy, and as soon as an opening presented itself he would swoop in and strike.
“It almost seems like a waste, doesn’t it?” he continued somewhat theatrically, looking around at the snow and ice. “We’re here to fight, and yet every kid in the world would die for a place like this. Can you imagine coming here about fifteen years ago?” Still smiling, he stooped and gathered a handful of cold, fluffy snow, packing and molding it into a ball. Indeed, it looked like a harmless projectile a normal child might have made on a frosty winter day. Atzar wasn’t a child, though, and he definitely wasn’t normal either. What he held in his hands was no longer a snowball, but was rather solid ice.
“Think fast!” he called out to the stranger, and he effortlessly tossed the projectile. His motion was easy, effortless, as a father might throw to his kid when playing catch. Instead, the ball rocketed forth from his hand as the mage put the full force of his magic behind it. This was why he had wanted snow and ice. This was why he endured the discomfort of the numbing cold.
The guise of tranquility dropped from his features, the silly grin replaced now by a determined scowl. Surrounded by the frigid snow, the frozen ice, Atzar was in his element.
Fast was exactly what Duffy was good at, in fact, some said it was all he was good at doing. Running away, chasing after, dodging flying heels and witty remarks, they had all developed as part of his repertoire over his few short years. Where he went, pain usually followed, and you had to develop the art of survival to remain intact. As the wizard cast his spell and the icy sphere flew bluntly towards him, Duffy timed his back flip very carefully.
The ice shattered on the wall behind him as he landed legs wide apart and stooped like a panther waiting to pounce. The cold rushed from his body but juddered and cracked his muscles as it went, leaving him panting and very aware that he had nearly been bludgeoned to death moments into meeting. The problem with mages, he had always said, was that they didn’t propagate a fair fight, not when you didn’t have any magic of your own. “Fast,” he stuttered, standing upright and folding the demi-cloak back over his shoulders, “fast is what I do best me ol’ chum.”
He unsheathed Tooth and Nail and twirled them about in his fingers. Ruby’s lecture only three days prior echoed about in his mind, he had not listened to her plea for him to enrol in the university to learn counter-magic, but he was certainly facing up to the fact that not every conflict in the Citadel, if not in life would be a fair fight between cutthroat, swordsmen and fellow thief. He hopped left and right again, stomping as much as his cold feet would allow to rekindle the passion that he could unleash in wiry and deft showmanship, and as he pushed forward with one foot, he buckled a knee and fell into a forwards run.
The patter patter of his feet echoed along the tunnel of the maze, his toothy grin beamed a smile at the mage and his companion, and with each advance, Duffy Bracken brought his weapons up inch by inch until they are stretched out either side and pointing inwards over the man’s heart. “Think fast!” He retorted, eyes keen and heart pounding so hard it blurred his vision and fired adrenaline through his veins. He had one close call already, so he had to act quickly and decidedly in this death trap metropolis before he was caught short and found out to be not as fast as he thought.
He’s quick.
The stranger had dodged the projectile with ease and was now closing the gap between them at an alarming rate, seeming almost to glide above the ankle-deep snow. A prickle of concern emerged in the mage’s head. He had to keep his distance; he had to stay away from those blades. To allow his foe to get close was to invite death. Atzar had already died once in the Citadel, and once was one time too many.
He stooped and grabbed another big handful of snow, turning it into ice once again. Instead of immediately launching his weapon, the mage held it. His nimble adversary would likely dodge a straightforward attack; the wizard needed to find a way to surprise him with it. He backpedaled to buy himself precious seconds, searching his surroundings for an idea. It was when Atzar happened to look up that a particularly large snowflake landed directly in his eye, and it brought with it an idea.
The snow fell as heavily as ever, obscuring his vision and adding to the fluff that caught at his feet with every step backwards. It was no difficult task to direct some of the snowfall into the face of his attacker. It was simply a distraction, meant to annoy and blind the stranger. The ice ball that shot from his hand at the stranger’s chest, however, would be a lot more than a simple irritation.
The mage didn’t wait around to see what happened. If it struck its target, the ice ball would hurt, maybe break a rib or two at the most, but it was far from a lethal blow. He turned around and fled, kicking snow up behind him as he bolted around a corner. The stranger would be hot on his heels; he knew that much. In the meantime, though, he would put as much distance between himself and those twin daggers as he could.
At the same time, he hoped that Zirkan was keeping watch from above. He doubted that he could hold his pursuer at arm’s length forever, and the time would probably come where he would need his friend’s aid.
Half way across the expanse, Duffy suddenly found himself blinded by a wet substance that felt as if a cloud had fallen from the sky and slapped him into mediocrity. He stumbled and tried to wipe it with his fingers, and then everything went temporarily haywire. A sharp pain ripped into his right shin and knocked it backwards and his upper torso forwards. The sound of him falling flat on the solid ice mimicked the noise a large wet fish made when it came into contact with a man's face.
"Ugh," he mumbled, pushing himself upright and tucking his knees in to settle on his haunches. His face was wet, increasingly cold and the shards of ice a few feet behind meant the wizard had gulled him into blindness and taken a cheap shot whilst he was down. Just what I need, the thief complained, someone who cheats more than me! With a slow gait he stumbled upright and picked up his morale with a little tune as he limped along the ice corridor. He gave reluctant and awkward chase to the mage and his companion, who was out of sight and for now, out of mind.
It did not take long for the dull throb to ease off into a long forgotten injury, and soon, Duffy cantered precariously on the slippery ice towards whatever hidden danger lay beyond the next turn or across the needle thin ice bridge to the abyss feigned in the lack of light in the arena floor. He did not want to imagine what falling down one of them would feel like, expecting the pain to be awoken in life a few moments afterward. Vertigo could develop very quickly from an experience like that, and today, the only scars he wanted to take out of the arena were those from the cantrips of his opponent. Determined and limbering up through the excertion and motion, the Tantalum turned one last corner, praying that his time he would arrive somewhere meaningul, to be shot of this cursed iceland for good.
A few short twists and turns later, the glacial corridor opened into a new chamber. The mage slowed to a walk, taking the area in.
The gallery was vast; the far side vanished, invisible beyond the depths of the falling snow. The shrieking wind picked up, although certainly not to the mindless ferocity it possessed outside of the walls; here, it merely eddied and gusted, sweeping the myriad crystals around with it. The labyrinth, however, completely changed its form. In a sense, it had reversed itself; it was still a maze, yet where walls had once risen to the sky, black chasms now dropped to the depths of the earth. Atzar’s attention, however, focused on something more specific.
His path ended abruptly in about forty feet, with no way to reach any of the surrounding ledges without benefit of wings.
Fantastic.
The wizard turned as if to leave, to find a better place to battle, even though he knew it was no use; already he thought he could hear his opponent’s steps as he stomped through the snow on Atzar’s trail. A string of muttered curses escaped his lips, steaming in the wintry air. The magus wasn’t one to swear much, but this situation definitely warranted it.
With one last oath, he turned back and strode cautiously out onto the ice. Here, the wind swept the frosty pathway clear of the powdery snow, ushering it down into the depths of the pit below. Step by precarious step, Atzar edged out further onto the hazardous platform. The surface was about eight feet wide, but the treacherous footing combined with the whistling wind to make it seem a lot narrower. About fifteen feet out, the mage stopped. This was far enough; no need to invite his foe to simply bull him over the precipice. He turned back to the ice wall from whence he’d come and waited for his adversary to catch up.
As he waited, his mind flashed back to his bout with the devilish Witchblade years ago. At the end of that fight, he had been outmatched. He remembered his last-ditch effort to take her down with him at the end. A look of grim resolution spread across his face as he made a promise to himself:
He would not lose.
Falling through the maze like a raindrop through the hazy clouds, Duffy tumbled out into the open expanse and gasped. The shift in terrain came as such a shock to the system he fell forward onto his knees in a rock star salute and slip to a halt with exasperation and fear behind his eyes. It took a few moments for him to reconcile his bearings, and he caught sight of the mage halfway out onto the peninsula in the sea of certain death.
“Well,” he shouted as he stood, “ain’t nowhere to hide now!”
Unfortunately, in Duffy’s experience of the world, this also meant that he in turn had nowhere to run to, except back into the labyrinthine permafrost. “Fortunately, I’ve no qualms with a good ol’ fashioned sword fight,” he stepped cautiously forwards and raised his right hand to the hilt of his blade. The sound of boot scraping on ice and hobnail dragging across the glass smooth surface split the speech with the howl of the wind, until he had moved halfway between the passageway behind, and the opponent in front.
The little flecks of snow on the horizon turned into a grey fade as they descended down into the beyond. Precarious footsteps would not protect even the deftness of acrobats here, one false move, one little crescendo of amateur dramatics and he, and all his hopes of victory, would tumble into shadow. He did not like the thought of that one bit. “I would assume that you ain’t quick enough to dodge a steel cutter, but I imagine I ain’t gonna get near ya without more of that ‘ocus pocus flyin’ around – so,” he drew the Katarhna with a signature ring, and levelled it at Atzar indiscriminately, "Show us what you can do that a sword can't do better!"
As the wind dragged the urgency and threat in Duffy’s words up into the falseness of the atmosphere, a rising sense of danger grew in the pit of his stomach. All of his good fortune in life thus far had revolved around the support and network of friends he had amassed in the Tantalum, in Corone, in the wilderness troupes of the back of beyond. Slowly but surely, as time went on and bonds tethered in promises faded, the Tantalum found himself increasingly alone, reliant on the lack lustre repertoire he had disguised as genius amongst idiots. He continued his advance with his blade held to the front with two hands tightly gripping the hilt - his eyes set dead centre on the wizard’s form; his stare as cold as his buttocks and thighs.
The chilly wind gusted straight through the mage, leeching all of the heat from his body. He felt as if he’d never be warm again. Death is inevitable now, Atzar had morbidly convinced himself; even were he to outduel his advancing adversary, there would be no escape from the wintry warren. He would die here one way or the other, and nothing could save him.
The trash-talking fighter had done away with his daggers in favor of a katana. Kellon didn’t care. He imagined that one big cut hurt about as much as two smaller ones, and as far as Atzar was concerned it just meant he had to dodge one less blade now – not that the treacherous ice would allow him to avoid anything, anyway.
But the swordsman had come close enough. The mage gathered his wits for the confrontation, taking one last look at his surroundings. The wind swept the ledge clear of snow, and his feet slid on the ice as he shifted his stance. Fluff still fell thickly around him, swirling into his face, sticking to his clothes. Death stared balefully up from the abyss that surrounded him, and also from the keen edge of the blade held in his enemy’s hands.
Perhaps it was inevitable. Perhaps he couldn’t escape. But Atzar would be damned if he just laid down and accepted it.
Fueled by defiance and a desire to survive, the mage felt the life return to his limbs. Both hands rose from his sides, and he brought his magic to bear. Small chunks of ice broke free from the ledge to hover briefly in the frigid air before firing rapidly at the body of his assailant. With each new projectile, the narrow platform became even narrower, even more dangerous. The assault didn’t end there; Atzar also borrowed from the storm itself, pulling wisps of wind away and letting them fly as nigh-invisible blades. They would do little more than sting, but the wizard was giving it everything he had.
Cornered animals always fought the hardest.
Bunny if you need to, just don’t kill me.
Duffy keened his gaze onto the first shard of ice and stepped sideways out of harm's way. His heavy boots held on to the slick ice flow beneath his feet, but gave way as he attempted to dodge the second, third, fourth and fifth. He danced the fate tango between life and limb but felt his luck fail him as the last of the chunks hit him square in the chest.
He crouched forwards then slumped. His blade chimed against the ice and he looked up at the mage with deep contempt in his eyes. All of his previous youthful enthusiasm and buoyant charm went firmly out the window.
"Enough of this," he mumbled, tapping the ground with his knuckles to test if it was hollow. He stood up very, very slowly and balanced his arms out sideways as if he were on a surf board.
Satisfied that he was stable he kicked forwards against the howling wind and charged Atzar. His luck failed him once more as the mage whipped up diamond sharp daggers of magical prominence from nothing. Like the sonic slices of Teric Bloodrose or the growling silver streaks of power from the blade of Metal Drago, the arena itself fought with the Tantalum.
He sliced through the first with the Sword of the Western Weald, ducked the second and continued his run. Just as he was about to raise his blade and split the pesky magic user in two, the third wind blade struck him and he flew backwards, all his efforts rebuffed with a bruised rib and a winded lung.
He skidded off his feet and slide in a spiral on his front a good twenty feet back along the ledge. The natural contours of the ice ledge carried him to the mage's right and he felt his weight drop out beneath him as his legs slipped over the drop.
And lo the hero fo the hour falls to his... The Narrator began.
With quick thinking and guile, Duffy let the katana go and flicked Wainwright's Riposte out from his belt. He drove it into the ice as hard as his feeble strength could manage and came to a halt, legs suspended mid-air and his upper body pulling as hard as he could to stay alive.
He gritted his teeth and pictured his prized blade spiralling down and down and further down still into the abyss. The mage was calling all the shots, and Duffy was running out of blades to give him a good sticking like he had promised.
"Grrr," he strained harder and brought himself back onto the platform. He lay face down for a moment to catch his breath before looking at the mage with a fiery glance. He pushed himself upright once more. His clothes fluttered in the wind and snow scattered his shoulders and hair as he rose to the occasion, sick, cold and tired of being outwitted.
"That was a sneaky trick," he growled, "try that again." He twirled his dagger in his right hand and counterbalanced his movement with an outstretched left arm. He advanced all be it slowly along the ledge.
A muttered curse escaped from the mage’s lips. His foe had amazing resolve; a lesser adversary would have long since succumbed to the arcane onslaught, but the man fought on grimly. He dodged as well as he could, absorbed with gritted teeth the shots he could not evade, and found ways to escape from death’s hungry maw.
His enemy advanced on him once again, jaw set, weapon pointed at the mage. Atzar fired off another chunk of ice, and the fleet-footed fighter sidestepped it. A second shot shattered into a million crystalline shards on the keen edge of the hungry blade.
The sour taste of fear rose in the wizard’s throat. What did it take for the blasted swordsman to lay down and die? Atzar had controlled the fight from the start. He had created an environment that catered to his own abilities. He had used deception and trickery. But now he could see it slipping away. With a sharp blade at his front and a yawning chasm at his back, the mage had no more aces up his sleeves. Desperately he wondered what had happened to Zirkan, but in his heart he knew that there would be no help forthcoming.
A sudden movement. His foe lunged forth, feet finding purchase on the slippery surface, blade raised high to strike. Atzar jumped backwards, and the steely weapon cut an arc through the wintry air mere inches from his face, snowflakes eddying in its wake. Then the ice betrayed him. His boots slid awry on the icy surface, and he tumbled backwards toward the edge. He could only scrabble frantically at the frozen floor as it carried him toward oblivion.
Only lightning-quick wits saved him. As he careened toward the abyss, he swiftly brought his magic to bear and gouged handholds into the accursed ice. He hung there, torso lying prone on the ground, but legs dangling dangerously over the nothingness beneath him. He cast a panicked look in his foe’s direction; he could see a triumphant smile forming on his lips, could only watch as the man sauntered forward almost casually to finish the helpless wizard.
It was time.
Trembling slightly, Atzar closed his eyes to calm himself. He hadn’t envisioned it happening like this.
It had been so different when he had fought Witchblade. The wicked woman had cut him, broken him, wounded him to within an inch of his life. As he had lain helpless, bleeding out into the snow, he had summoned his last power to try to take her with him. The avalanche had tumbled down upon them, but beneath it all the mage was already dead.
This time, it didn’t feel like one last hurrah so much as it felt like reckless suicide, a complete disregard for his own life. He didn’t feel that delirium, that detachment that came over him as he died. He wasn’t reaching from the brink of death to take one final shot. Instead, he lay on the ice, chilled to the bone but otherwise unharmed. He was very much alive, very much aware, and very much afraid of what he needed to do.
When the mage opened his eyes again, he saw his adversary standing over him, sword raised high. He would not give him that satisfaction. With one last breath, he lashed out with all of his power at the ice around him. Sharp reports cracked all around him, muffled somewhat by the snow, as great avalanches crumbled into the void. The floor disintegrated beneath his fingers. No going back now. With one more great crack, Atzar dropped away into the abyss.
He wanted to cry, wanted to scream. The world grew dark around him as every second carried him further and further away from the frigid maze far above. Eyes screwed tight, he braced for the fatal impact that he knew would eventually come.
Bunnying approved via AIM.
After all his endeavouring against the turgid magical defence of his magical opponent, it was passion, not power, that defeated the bard. As the long slither of ice that formed the ledge gave way, Duffy felt his world, his hopes; his victories and loves tumble down into the infinite bleakness, along with the more material trappings of flesh, steel and stone.
Each turn of his body as it flailed brought nausea and another notch in the countdown to his demise. He caught the mage as he span, set him in his sights and watched him tumble into the blackness first. At the back of his mind, he wondered if it had been an intended action, or if the weight of both combatants had caused the ice to give way. Given the nature of his magic, and the sheer cold numbing the senses from terrain and attack, he could only guess that it was deliberate.
A mage was braver than Duffy had expected, and he had every respect for him as the howling winds became nothing more than a thin crack far above, a vein of navy blue tracing out the Citadel’s fickle arena.
“Oh well,” he mumbled, letting go of his sword and loosening his muscles and limbs as the shadows engulfed him and he fell into obscurity. The sound of the wind rushing past his ears drowned out Atzar’s death, and drowned out the clatter of cloth, steel and katana on the deadly and hidden permafrost.
If this were Salvar, such ice would have seen a thousand bodies fall helplessly onto it, but the glimmering, freshly formed gorge in the Citadel took its first life.
Today just wasn’t my da-
Crunch.
Then it’s second, and their blood trickled from the jagged blades to offer some hope of warmth to the denizens of the dark amidst the black ice, bound in time and eternal chill.
Silence Sei
08-09-10, 03:49 PM
Atzar Duffy
Story ~ 15/15
Character ~ 19/20
An aside here, Atzar, you only lost the point for your dragon’s disappearance. This was not only a big issue with me, but everybody in your workshop, apparently.
Writing Style ~ 20/20
Wildcard ~ 5/5
Duffy wins 60-59
Despite starting at level 2 and using such profiles, Duffy still gets 1575 exp, and Atzar gets 450 EXP
Duffy gets 100 GP, and Atzar gets 140 GP
Both contestants also get a single ice cube that never melts as a reminder of their DOUBLE K!O!
Knaveofspades, being top contributor in the WW, gets 100 exp and 50 GP.
SirArtemis gets 150 exp
Orphans gets 150 exp
Chroma the lost gets 100 exp
And that should do it. I’m sure one of you guys will PM me if I screwed up.
Silence Sei
08-09-10, 03:59 PM
exp-gp added.
Atzar hit four mo fo.
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