Subtle Development (OPEN)

[The Prince]

This is an open 1 v 1 battle that is open to anyoneThere’s nothing more I can teach you. Prince Coel Dragomir Travin repeated the words of his trainer, Andre Moltovo, in his mind. You must travel to the Citadel in Corone and do battle with someone greater than me. There you will learn your limits. There you will overcome them.

The Prince stood in the center of a ruined courtyard with his shield and his spear in hand. In the background, the small town of Petrov in Salvar was burning to the ground. Though the Prince had requested to battle in his fallen fiefdom, he was unprepared for the intense imagery and attention to detail the monks had placed into the arena. Each burning building, destroyed valuable, and overturned rock looked exactly as it had two years ago during King Iorlan I Rathaxea’s attack. The Prince had chosen this setting to act as both a painful reminder of his past and a conduit to fuel the anger he’d been forced to contain for the past two years. Moltovo, who championed tactical restraint over aggression, would not be pleased with the Prince’s first choice of battle outside of his trainer’s presence.

Unsure of the Citadel’s procedure, the Prince’s mind wandered. Where would his opponent appear? Would they immediately begin fighting? To help him focus on the battle, the Prince slowly moved forward in the courtyard taking keen observations of his surroundings. Though he could see no one, he could hear the painful screams of his kinsmen who had been killed at the hands of King Iorlan I Rathaxea and he could feel the winds blowing heat from the burning buildings into the courtyard. It had been only moments since the Prince had entered the room and already he was sweating. It appeared the monk’s magic could effect every one of the senses.

To ease his anxiety, the Prince repeated the words of his trainer to himself. Only after you’ve defeated the strongest warriors of the Citadel will you be ready to face your destiny and claim your rightful title to the throne. Everybody, even a Prince, had to start somewhere.

[Kade Underbough]

“Ya gotta be kiddin’ me?” Kade burst out at his captain, boiling with frustration. The armor clad warrior before him simply gave the conscript a derisively smug grin. He loved to give his young soldier a hard time

“You know I’m not kidding with you, Dog. You’re going to fight in that Citadel as many times as it takes to turn you into a man on the field. I won’t have you getting any more of my men killed because of your inadequacy.” Lionel pushed the brown haired teenager one more time amongst countless times. It had taken the two over half an hour to make their way to the entryway of Kade’s directed arena; he had tried to fight his way back down the stairwell several times.

“How many times do I gotta fight in here?” the young man seethed. Memories of his failure in the bloody tournament called The Cell made him recoil at the thought of fighting for sport ever again.

“As many…” the captain breathed through clenched teeth. He swung the arena’s door open and shoved the lad inside. “…as it takes!”

Lionel’s voice faded as a swirling darkness took hold of the conscript and he felt the strange sensation of being teleported far away. It seemed each room had a different way of delivering its competitors. As quickly as the darkness had surrounded him, it released him, bringing him somewhere outside and completely foreign. Having never ventured far from Radasanth, not knowing where he was wasn’t too far a stretch for the imagination.

A light touch of snow lay on each lime blade of grass of the short field where he idly stood. Not very far off, a burning town immediately grabbed his attention, flames gnawing at each stick of timber where many may have called home. Had Kade believed in the Ai'Brone monks’ false imagery, he would have been alarmed and possibly guilted into helping save a few lives. He was far from the heroic type, but morals still ebbed into his conscience during such circumstances.

Not here though.

He knew many combatants of the Citadel loved the thrill of battle. Some just loved to kill. At any moment, a bloodthirsty brute could arrive from seemingly nowhere at his side. At any moment, he could be slain in warm, bubbling blood. A pain in his chest reminded him of his recent death in the tournament; where his inexperience had resulted in him being slashed wide open. It was a pain he never planned on feeling again.

“Not if I can help it anyways,” he mumbled to himself, pulling out his yew bow. He glanced away from the enflamed town and found himself only several yards away from a man much larger than he, carrying a spear and shield. The bandit’s hair prickled on the back of his neck, a premature rush of adrenaline making its way through his veins. It was uncanny how quickly he became nervous at how close to death he could already be.

“Hey, you! You plan on killin’ me?” He notched an arrow to his bowstring and aimed for the man’s torso, not caring for any particular answer the man might give him. People only came to the Citadel for one reason. Stupid question, he noted, wishing he had attacked silently. Without cause for formalities, the youth let his arrow fly.

[The Prince]

Thanks for joining, Kade. Don't be turned off by my character's initial petulance, I hope by the end that Kade and Coel will become friends. This thread is now closed to everyone but Kade Underbough! Prince Coel Dragomir Travin nearly jumped at the sound of Kade’s voice. He wasn’t expecting his opponent to arrive in the arena from behind him. Instinctively, the Prince spun around on his heels to face his opponent. He was further greeted by a knocked arrow aimed directly at him. Before the Prince could speak, Kade released the arrow. Instead of crouching and allowing the projectile to strike his shield at an angle like how he was taught, the Prince only had time to jab the arrow with his shield to deflect the attack. The resulting clash sent a painful vibration up his arm and left a permanent dent on the face of the shield. It wasn’t an impressive start to the battle, but at least his questions about Citadel procedure had been answered.

Following the attack, the Prince allowed the pain in his hand to subside by examining his opponent. Within moments his face bore the same frustration it had for the past two years. His assailant was no warrior. He was no champion of the Citadel. Kade was just a skinny teenager with an oversized bow—a thief by the look of him. “Why, of all the warriors in Althanas, do you send me him?” the Prince bellowed to no one in particular. How was he supposed to prepare to defeat a king by battling a boy? Even Moltovo would have more combat experience than this runt.

Determined to convince the keepers of the Citadel that he was prepared to face its best, the Prince resolved to make short work of this opponent. With an air of frustration, the Prince turned his spear in his hand so that his knuckles were facing upwards and began to run at Kade. When the Prince was roughly five feet from the teenager, he jumped into the air and came down hard. His spear would strike first, aiming to impale Kade in his heart with a hard top down thrust. Then his shield would come second, attempting to smother his opponent beneath his weight (imagine Achilles’ jump attack from the opening scene of Troy).

[Kade Underbough]

Most definitely shouldn’t of said nothin’, was the first thing that ran through the young brigand’s head as he watched his target avoid any real damage.

His opponent didn’t attack right away, choosing to evaluate Kade as any sensible combatant would. His outburst toward the heavens, or the monks, was an embarrassing line the thief had heard in various forms many times before. He stared at the ground for a moment, nudging a few nearby blades of grass with the toe of his boot as he mumbled to himself, “That’s ‘cause I ain’t a warrior.”

He looked up just in time to see the man begin a charge, his facial demeanor plastered with annoyance and disappointment. He looked like one of the many Citadel dwellers that thrived from the actual heat of battle, with no care as to who would be named the winner or loser. He wanted to face a grown man, a warrior; basically the summation of everything Kade wasn’t. When the spear wielding man leapt into the air, his foe did exactly the opposite of what any respectable warrior would do. He did exactly what he had always done. Avoid and run.

Agile as any kid from the streets of Radasanth, bred to dodge the sticky fingers of the law on any given day, it wasn’t difficult for him to spin to the side. A rush of air hugged at his turned back as his assailant passed by. A braver man would have then unsheathed his sword and engaged himself in combat without hesitation. He only had a dagger, nigh impossible to use functionally against someone armed with shield and spear. Like a pursued mouse, he darted away; sure that death would be right on his heels. But where was his hole?

Gotta get away. Gotta hide…

His eyes jumped from place to place, but aside from the open courtyard and burning town, the monks of Ai'Brone had left the environment as a vast plain. The town it is. With a quick swallow, he discarded his fear, figuring the town wouldn’t be in as bad shape as it appeared from the outside. A past experience in the Citadel had once sent him headlong into a river of magma, so any lesser burns could be considered somewhat tolerable in his view. He had never been in a burning town.

Even at the outskirt of the flames, the heat had increased remarkably fast, bellows of smoke pushing and clawing its way over his skin and through his nostrils. He immediately regretted his decision, but chose not to look over his shoulder, figuring any true fighter would be on his tail. Instead, he charged straight between two pillars of flame, buildings beyond lost to the blaze. If the man wanted a fight, he was going to have to take the same heat as Kade to get it.

I can forgive petulance if you can forgive Kade's complete lack of honor.