LCC - R1: Plane Curiosity VS Skullfuckers

[Enigmatic Immortal]

This round begins at 12:00 PM PACIFIC TIME on Friday! Good Luck!!!

[Mordelain]

All dialogue, and 'bunnying' of Resolve and Mordelain will be pre-approved between respective owners.

Everybody in the world needs a path to walk along. We all need something to guide us to wherever it is we are going. Some may not know where that destination lies, and some may never know it, even when they get there. For a weary traveller to simply believe in a goal is all that most require.

Mordelain Saythrou, however, was tired of not knowing. She had walked a path lonesome and laden with sorrow for two centuries, not quite sure if she was walking forwards or back. Every time she turned a curve in the road, she felt more and more certain that something was amiss.

Then a curious thing happened.

“You came along and stabbed me in the gut.” Her expression turned from stoic and emotionless into a cruel, self-mocking smile. She held out a hand, an extension of friendship and welcome, and shook the girl’s own in a bond of friendship.

“Well,” Resolve said, trying not to sound too sure of herself, “it’s what we both were there for.” She retreated a few steps, her soft foot wrappings scuffing over the surface of the gazebo’s floorboards. “If I did not gut you first, I daresay you would not have hesitated to run me through with that spear.”

The planes walker could not argue with that sentiment, not one bit. They had met what seemed like months ago now in the Citadel in Radasanth. Neither of the pair expected to cross paths again beyond the sanctuary of the arena. It was part of the allure – killing without reprisal. Looking at the girl now, Mordelain realised why. She felt guilty, tired, and sick. She had seen her die, right before her very eyes, and felt no remorse in her deeds.

“Perhaps on this fine day,” she looked up with glistening eyes at the glaring sun directly overhead, “we can put those skills to a better use.”

It was all that needed to be said. Pleasantries could be exchanged in the time between rounds, should they be fortunate enough to survive and advance. Mordelain settled her gaze onto the gazebo at the far end of the immeasurably long privet lawn and waited. She gripped the edge of her left glove with her right hand, a sign of a nervous disputation.

“At the very least we may learn a thing or two about horticulture,” she curled her lips shrewdly. Her decision to allow the arena to be down to chance and a roll of the die was coming back to haunt her. The lawn was closed off completely, with a gazebo at either end in pure white; both structures were laced with climbing ivy and jasmine flowers. The hedge that hemmed them in was some thirty feet tall, and though Mordelain could not gauge the length, it was at least four hundred feet wide. She had no idea if there was anything beyond.

Every ten feet there was a small rose bush in a circle of sand cut into the grass. They were no more than five feet tall, and they were equidistant from one another, but in no set pattern beyond random happenstance. In the sunlight that danced down from the heavens bees and dragonflies danced their mating waltzes and hummed their chordate cries. Mordelain stomped a foot down hard on the pristine decking, to remind herself that she had ascended blind in a tube up to the arena, and then wondered what the tournament organisers had said to Resolve, if anything at all.

The words echoed in her ear as she adjusted her glove, gave the exorcist a comforting smile, and tied her hair back into a rigid bun.

“Don’t…touch…the flowers…” she whispered.

[Luned]

One moment Luned was pumped, the next she was riddled with crippling anxiety and doubt. This conflicting attitude wore Flint's patience thin over the past few days, her bouts of insecurity making any attempt to practice or strategize rather frustrating occasions, and their last night of preparation went from nearly productive to the scribe wallowing in past horrors thanks to heavy sampling of the complimentary wine. It was a miracle their friendship persevered, but here they were, risen into in a pristine white gazebo before a lovely field of luxurious grass and beautiful flowers, presumably ready to kick some ass.

Well, kind of ready. Luned was impressively well off considering the hangover she should've earned, the dark circles under her eyes and pallor of her already fair skin only making her look more intimidating, though in a way that hinted she'd give their opponents some sort of plague over stab them effectively. If anything, it'd hopefully at least gain her some berth.

As they stood there and gathered in the unlikely arena, Luned took a deep, calming breath which she quickly regretted. The air was heavily perfumed with pollen and it tickled her sinuses, resulting in a squeak of a sneeze that earned an unimpressed sidelong glance from Flint.

"Hay fever," Luned sighed, rubbing her nose with the back of her wrist. From there she patted her pockets, found the one containing her fountain pen, and withdrew it, a fine piece of Aleran craftsmanship freshly cleaned, filled, and ready for use. She really did look the part of an unassuming scribe, clad in a rather drab, slate blue dress that harkened to her uniform from her days as an apprentice. It was mid-length, revealing her old leather boots and a glimpse of stockinged knees, and the top was conservative but well-fit, a narrow belt around her waist along with her one small knife. She rolled her sleeves up to the elbows, baring the pale, freckled skin of her forearms, and gripped her pen like the weapon it was.

"Hm." The man continued inspecting the field, skeptical of its pleasant simplicity, and then nudged his partner to attention. "Look, they're there."

Lo and behold, their opponents had just come into view across the way inside an identical structure. Luned looked up, blinked, and narrowed her eyes at a glimmer of all-too-familiar crimson and violet. No. Fucking. Way.

"Women," Flint muttered as he tried to make out what details he could from that distance. "Remember what we discussed about long and short range…? Luned, are you paying attention?" He caught her edging back in an obvious attempt to cower behind his slightly taller, much broader figure. With a groan, he rubbed his temple. "What are you doing?"

"Resolve's out there," Luned said in a hoarse whisper, as if they could hear her from all that distance.

"Who?"

"My best friend."

"Well, didn't she know you would be here? You should have weighed the risks of being matched together––"

"No," the scribe grumbled pitifully. "She didn't know. I didn't know." Some friends they were.

[Warpath]

Flint never had a best friend, but he understood the concept and why the presence of one in a place like this was maybe problematic. He sighed through his nose and hooked his thumbs into his belt loops, and eyed the newcomers across the way. They, in turn, were no doubt trying to piece together why one of their opponents was hiding behind the other.

While he tried to determine which the friend was and which the stranger, Flint considered his options. It was his natural inclination to think Luned useless, being charming and freckled and cute and dressed in a skirt, and wielding a pen. In direct contrast, he was broad, bearded, mean, and dressed in skull-stomping boots, black leather, plated bracers, fist-wraps, and at least fifteen pounds more muscle than a human being needs. Of course, appearance meant little and Flint knew it: Luned had a habit of saving his life. Maybe that’s why he was here.

Because he didn’t have friends, and he affirmed that. Housewives have friends, and children, and dullards. Flint had accomplices, or lackeys, or cats-paws, and two or three times a lover, but never friends. He denied that he was protective of this little scribe, and instead decided that she was akin to a student to him. Yes. She was a student of the world as he saw it, a trainee on the brutal path.

Flint knew that the world was an oblivious place, peopled with predators and the cruelly indifferent prey they fed upon, and the only thing that mattered was power. Sometimes, in Luned’s darker moments, he saw hints of that same realization in her. Such wisdom was rare in the world, and deserved nurturing, and if she just came to see it all as he did…

“What’re we gonna do?” Luned whispered, nudging him in the back.

Reverie broken, he muttered to himself and turned to face her. She recognized his bearing and straightened up, ready for the pep-talk. He made a displeased sound, unused to his habits being familiar to someone.

“You will fight your friend,” he declared.

Before Luned could object – and he saw it coming – he continued speaking: “How can you not? If you don’t, I will have to, and what kind of kindness is that? You wanted to do this, and fate put you here, opposite your…” He paused, trying to think of the term she’d used. “Your best friend. Are you afraid of her?”

“A little,” Luned said, peeking around his shoulder.

“No!” Flint sighed. “What are you?”

“Oh right,” Luned said, screwing up her face in the best approximation of Flint’s unnerving stare. “I’m fear.”

“Yes,” Flint said. “We are fear. Your friend…”

“Resolve.”

“…Resolve? Resolve. Of course Resolve is just as shocked as you are to be here, opposite you, tortured by the same doubts. She feels fear, and it is yours to use. And you must not pity her. You are revealing a truth to her, teaching her about fear, and in turn you will learn about her, because a person is only true when fraught. You will see her not as she has portrayed herself, but as she is, laid bare. All resentments, old hatreds thought buried, all will come to the surface, along with shared secrets and shared triumphs. If you fight her, your friendship will be stronger than you ever thought possible, and your partnership…”

“Flint?”

Luned was staring wide-eyed over his shoulder. He turned around, just in time to see a confused blur of coffee-and-cream colored skin, exotic white tattoos, and a pair of angry blue eyes, and then he took a solid right hook to the jaw.

[Resolve]

The pretty little green reminded Resolve of Trayas and therefore of immensely irritating fairies, so in the first few moments she spent surveying the intended battlefield, she crossed her fingers they'd be blessed with decent opponents. That was really the best she could ask for; the rest was up to them.

"What's in the flowers?" the girl asked after Mordelain's strange comment, though it was likely rhetorical as if she knew, she'd likely have elaborated. This thought carried out with her voice over the lush, emerald grass, studded by fragrant and unassuming roses, to bring her watchful gaze to the opposite gazebo. "They just told me to look out for gopher holes."

There were figures there, but the sun overhead was bright and Resolve squinted to focus on them. One of their opponents was an intimidatingly built man, not in height but in sheer bulk, and for a long moment his partner was difficult to see as her form wavered behind him. When he turned around to face her, however, the exorcist got a glimpse, and her stomach sank.

No way.

Luned's costume was much less of an obvious signature as Resolve's vibrant, layered sari, but she always seemed to wear some varying shade of that damn gray-blue, and from the familiar way in which the distant woman held herself, Resolve just knew. "Shit," she cursed, alarming her companion.

Mordelain looked to her questioningly.

"Dibs on the guy." This quick, non-negotiable decision was made for two reasons. The first, and most immediately apparent, was the fact that Resolve wasn't sure if she had it in her to harm the mousy scribe, an individual who had never been on her radar as anything but meek and, well, helpless. It was one thing to face an old sparring partner, but this was so utterly different it was excruciating, and Resolve's fingernails dug into her palms as she clenched her knuckles white.

The second reason came to her slowly, but as it sank it, it sent her into a rage. Luned was different since returning from Salvar, and her most recent disappearance brought her home injured, shaken, and withdrawn. Resolve knew she hadn't heard all of what happened in Salvar and figured her confidante would eventually share it with her, given support and time. This last episode was different, though. Resolve only learned later, through Agnie, that Luned went to Ettermire and returned not alone, but with a strange man.

Whoever this individual was, he knew the new Luned and Resolve didn't. Her most cherished friend was a stranger now, and if jealousy was an all-consuming flame, Resolve was on fire. She took this sick feeling and displaced it into fierce motivation, and within seconds, she had but one goal: to kick Flint's ass.

The girl could only hope that channeling her fury would keep her mind off whatever her partner was going to do to poor Luned. She unwillingly conjured gory images of the scribe's head atop the woman's partisan like a pike, Mordelain bathed in her blood like gratuitous warpaint, and in a panic she pushed them desperately from her mind.

To concentrate, Resolve's pale eyes focused on the offender and she allowed the rest of the world to drop away into formless blurs of green and gray. Her hand instinctively checked for the sword that was strapped to her waist, her fingers encircling the grip tentatively. The loose end of her sari, usually free-flowing for dramatic effect, was tucked smart and secure under the wide leather belt, and she was satisfied that she cut a dashing figure. The vibrant colors of her short sari contrasted remarkably against her brown skin which was riddled strikingly with white, tattoo-like designs and scars. Her long legs were hidden under black leggings and tapered into heavy stompin' boots, belled anklets from Fallien carrying music with every step. She felt powerful, and she looked it.

Resolve took that power straight across the field in a beeline for the other gazebo. To her surprise, the man didn't turn around. He didn't even realize she was there until Luned, who earned the coldest shoulder in Lornius Corporate Challenge history, pointed her out.

Flint turned to look and, without hesitation, Resolve drew back and slammed her fist into his jaw. That punch contained all the unspoken frustration that built over the past months and, when it struck true, the exorcist grinned in unabashed satisfaction. She immediately drew her sword, intending to make quick work of this, and went in for a quick slash across his abdomen.

[Mordelain]

Mordelain had never had any friends to even begin to understand how Resolve must have felt as she advanced quickly as the wind, through the rose peppered bushes and the delicate sunshine. She had to admire the stoic and determined nature of her partner. Though long lived compared to most, the planes walker could not think of anyone in her life that she had admired more in a shorter space of time. She smirked.

“Gladly,” she replied, though more to commit herself to the plan at hand. She could not see anything more about the man than the fact he was indeed a man. He did not appear to be ablaze, horned, or levitating; tell-tale signs of imminent danger. With a jubilant advance, Mordelain descended the few steps to the grass and let her bare feet press against the jade green blades of grass. She felt instantly at one with her surroundings, connected to the nature that may, or may not be their undoing.

She vanished.

Standing at the heart of a forest as immeasurable as it was beautiful, Mordelain tensed every muscle in her body. She pricked her ears. She listened to the rain drops as they fell through the tree canopy. She listened to the distant, yet unmistakable sound of a waterfall, and then relaxed. Of all the nine worlds of the Kalithrism, Bulganin was the one she most often found herself on. Its pulsating life and strange flora and fauna proved to be an inexhaustible source of entertainment to her in the long dark days of isolation. The sight of purple Luda Berries hanging from the Nona trees on the edge of the clearing to the north filled her with nostalgia.

“Must be mid-morning,” she said, clocking the birdsong overhead and the shadows of the Spider Monkeys as they continued to scattered away from the strange, tall, and lanky creature that had interrupted their mating cries in the heart of the Northern Woods. “Good.” Her voice was calm, but her body was shaking. Despite the sun, her simple black breeches and white blouse offered little in the way of protection against the tepid climate.

Three days prior, by the reckoning of Althanas’ strange time customs, Mordelain had left the island of Lornius for this very spot. She had buried in the tree stump she skittered over to the items she would need to give her the advantage in the first round. She had not known whom she was fighting with, or against ten, so when she vanished head first into the recess, rotten and dank, she was not sure what to pick out.

“This?” she re-appeared, a kukri in one hand, and a small feathered hat in the other. She bit her kip. The hat was thrown back in, and the kukri was tucked into her belt. She disappeared again, and spent several minutes selecting her attire, and weapons, for her eventual return to the privet lawn and Resolve’s side.

She chose her traditional garb, the bandoleer, rolled feather hat, and deep grey and purple cloth almost a distant memory to the planes walker, who had become accustomed to the lightweight cloth and Bedouin garb of Fallien’s scorching wasteland. She bounced up and down; happy her wet feet were now protected by cloth and leather, and listened to the bells on the ends of her jester’s cap tinkle to life.

“You look fabulous,” she said dryly, realising how stupid she must have looked, given what she was preparing for. One last duck into the mushroom covered recess produced a long length of wood, a second kukri, and at the shaft’s tip, a devilishly well-honed partisan head. Each of her two kukris, and the partisan, were bound in spider silk that was bright red; they stood out against the infinite tapestry of jade, olive, and mahogany that was Bulganin. The blades of the knives caught the light, and flashed with green malefic before they vanished beneath a blood red sash.

“For murder…” She took the partisan into her right hand, and set its tip into the mud.

Mordelain listened to the birdsong with her eyes closed for ten minutes, before she reached instinctively for her pocket, produced a small, ornate pocket watch, and flicked it open. Instantly, her sense of time became omniscient. She understood where, what, and how she was here on this world, when she had been on Althanas not so long ago. It was, indeed, mid-morning, according to the watch’s elaborate many handed clock face. On Althanas, it was still exactly the same time she had left. She pictured Resolve, frozen mid swing, and the petrified cry of surprise that would promptly echo through the hedge’s well groomed foliage.

With a pull of energy that felt like being broken into a thousand pieces, Mordelain let herself fall into the void between the nine planets. For a second, she was weightless, nothingness, and everything all at once. With a hell honed aim she appeared reborn anew on the opposite side of the arena. She landed just a few feet behind the girl that Resolve claimed was her ‘friend’. Fortunately for Resolve, Mordelain was more than willing to oblige. She lunged, in a similar fashion to resolve as she made for Flint.

Unfortunately for Luned, as she turned on a heel with a whelp, this meant a sharp, mirroring punch to the unprepared jaw.

[Luned]

As Resolve swung for Flint, the scribe couldn't help but feel a modicum of selfish relief that her friend was quicker to act than she; but, at the same time, she felt quite badly for Flint. He really had no idea what he was dealing with. She amended her answer from a moment earlier… Luned was very afraid of that young woman.

Fortunately, while she didn't have much to her name in the line of combat-relevant training, Luned was born with two helpful traits: a shrewd mind and cat-like reflexes. Without even a solid thought to commence the motion, her thumb popped the cap off her pen, the small metal object hitting the floor of the gazebo with a small clink, her left arm lifting at the ready––

And then Luned felt the presence of someone behind her. She turned just in time to see Mordelain, newly blossomed out of thin air and dressed impeccably, dive in for a hit that mirrored the exorcist's initial attack. The little scribe dodged, but just barely. She ducked slightly and sidestepped, then, in a moment of pure badassery, tore out of the gazebo and onto the green as if her life depended on getting as far away from the armed woman as she possibly could (which, instinctively, was true).

Now, she was well aware that her opponent could teleport at this point so hightailing it was likely futile, but this bought her just enough time to scribble a couple characters in ancient High Elven on the pale skin of her forearm. Her penmanship was janky from the hurry, something that made her cringe in itself, but she was willing to sacrifice the quality of her art in exchange for the gift this simple piece of writing brought her. The sepia ink glistened against her skin in the sunlight only for a split second, then the mark seemed to become just as much a part of her flesh as her many freckles.

As Luned whirled to face Mordelain, who she assumed had followed, she slipped her pen back into her pocket with her right hand and tested something with the other. A triumphant, yet terrified smirk played on her lips when she discovered it worked, a tingling heat budding in the palm of her hand, and she commenced a plan to continue evading her opponent until just the right moment.

[Warpath]

Flint could make the rare claim that he was accustomed to being punched in the face. He could not recall a woman ever punching him the face, and that seemed to make a difference in exactly the opposite way expected. Resolve repudiated the stereotypical softness of her sex, and indeed had delivered one of the meanest hooks the brute had ever received. As his head snapped to the side, his jaw sent a shot of agony and anger up his spine, and he retreated a few steps. There was no time to think, only to react. His head came straight again, his eyes reflecting every ounce of hurt and outrage he felt, and then his left arm shot down.

Resolve’s sword met Flint’s forearm and stopped, thwarted by the metal plate concealed between the layers of leather he wore between wrist and elbow. Now it was his turn to grin. “Resolve, I presume,” he said.

His hands moved with practiced ease and speed, the left forearm guiding the edge of the blade downward, the right hand shot forward in an attempt to catch her right hand at the wrist, and he stepped in and shoved his shoulder toward her all at once. His needs were threefold: to eliminate the advantage of superior reach afforded by her sword, to disarm her because swords are sharp and getting cut is unpleasant, and to leverage his weight.

[Resolve]

Introductions were best saved for the safety of whatever forum in which they would inevitably meet next, a situation likely heavily moderated by their mutual friend consisting of tea and passive aggressive glances, and not in a scenario where fisticuffs were expected and encouraged. At Luned's insistence, Resolve may have had it in her to be polite to Flint, but social niceties would have to come later; she had things to do, men to butcher.

The exorcist blatantly ignored her opponent's cheeky greeting and quickly found herself disarmed, though the hulk of a man may have found that his tactic was almost too easily effective, her hand dropping the weapon like a hot potato as soon as he leveraged his weight into the motion. As the sword hit the wooden floor of the gazebo with a clatter, nicking the pristine white paint, Resolve stepped into her next move without missing a beat.

The girl attempted to wrench her wrist out of his hand, yanking it against the weakest part of his grip where the tips of his fingers met his thumb. As she did that, she capitalized on the fact that Flint's weight was unevenly balanced onto his closest foot by hooking her left leg around his right. Pulling sharply at the ankle, she tried to force his knee to bend, which, combined with using her free arm to shove her weight against the back of his shoulder, would send him face-first to the floor.

[Warpath]

Flint felt his grin go slack when the sword clattered to the tiles. Everything was immediately wrong, and every subsequent moment could only progress toward the worse. Later, when time was on his side, he would wonder why the punch hadn’t been his first clue.

He grunted involuntarily as she yanked her wrist free of his grip with alarming ease, and then shifted her limbs fluidly, ankle to ankle, a twist at the hips, and a practiced push at the shoulder. Things were moving fast now, too fast for control, and thus the pair was proved at least equal. He was getting beat up by a girl.

His body reacted automatically while his mind puzzled, thrown into a spiral of panic sparked by a sudden immutable revelation: this woman was stronger than he was. Had his illness contracted in the Ettermire sewers been even more serious than it seemed? Were his muscles atrophying even now? How long did he have before he was helpless and useless, the very antithesis of the power he craved so desperately? Was he destined to be prey, after all of this?

No.

Flint relented under Resolve’s push, bending at the knee as she hoped, but dropping faster than she expected. He went down onto one knee and drew his hooked ankle in tighter against her pull, leaned away from her, and at the same moment twisted at the hips and raised his arm to deflect the hand she used to leverage her strength down on his shoulder. At the same moment, he used the same twisting motion to help propel his other fist upward; a shot he hoped would meet her unprotected side just below her ribs. The damage would be minimal, but he had to hope she did not share his familiarity with pain – he needed space, a second chance to understand this creature.

Rage, confidence, unwavering focus even in the face of the unexpected, skill, and stronger than a man with a hundred pounds over her? Flint was both intimidated and infatuated, and without some luck he was liable to end up head-over-heels in a more literal sense.

[Mordelain]

Mordelain was, to say the least, quite surprised by Luned’s survival instinct. Though it was kith and kin in human nature to survive, to prolong life at all costs, there was much to be said for the plucky scribe’s flight from the gazebo. The troubadour, agog, could only watch as she bounded away.

“Why did I listen to you…” she said to Resolve, though the sound of sword against air and fist against jaw told her all she needed to know about her companion’s ability to hear, never mind to respond. Begrudgingly, Mordelain glanced fleetingly over her shoulder, to check her ears were not playing tricks on her, and then stepped down onto the gazebo’s curved aperture.

“Are you frightened, little mouse?” she bellowed. Her lungs cracked wide, giving her a rush of blood to the head she had not felt in years. She had spent too long in the dark, cold depths of nowhere. Resolve had been the first person to truly make the Troubadour feel alive in two centuries. It felt…riveting.

“I’m not scared of you!” Luned bellowed, a meek voice mighty in the meaning. She held her arm still close to her, though Mordelain was not experienced enough in the many forms of magic on Althanas to know what danger it posed to her.

“Are you injured, little mouse?” she said, a thick Fallien veil falling over her Tama tongue. She slipped from Tradespeak to common, quite unable to keep up with herself. Her head was beginning to race, her fever rose, and her heart beat like a drum solo – loud, proud, and deafening.

No reply came, except in the form of cupping, caressing, and fondling her arm.

Mordelain’s feet came to a natural end-stop when her toes cupped the edge of the last step. One more advance, and she would be reunited with the buoyant lawn. In such an exuberant state, she could not trust her concentration to carry her safely towards her opponent. She could end up anywhere in the nine worlds, lost and adrift, set at odds with the universe because of a foolish need to end a life, to survive.

“If you’re injured, then why are you running?” she said, a sudden softness lulling even her cold, alien heart into a false sense of security. It seemed futile to run from a prey injured, “I will follow you, across the stars ablaze and the cracking universe as it decays through time.” She cocked her head to the left, just as Resolve and Flint clashed heavily behind her. “You stand and die, or you stand and rise triumphant.” She took the Partisan, its length longer than even her tall form into both hands, and levelled it in a left weighted stance so its tip aimed for Luned’s forehead.

She charged, with all the might of her conviction, feet eschews, knees taught, and eyes ablaze with murderous intent. If, when she arrived in Luned’ vicinity, either of the women were alive, the spider silk shaft would thrust forwards; it would be a headline worth reading in Salvar’s cold heart.

[Luned]

The scribe knew, deep in her heart, that the only way she could possibly inflict any damage on this imposing woman was to accept the fact that she was probably going to die. Things were going to happen that would hurt a lot, and there was nothing she could possibly do about it if she wanted to make the most of the tournament. This may have been a time to second guess her reasons in coming but she had to think quickly, losing any chance of tangental trains of thought.

In desperation, Luned frantically sought the power within herself to grow a pair and join the skirmish with everything she had. She wasn't like Flint, she wasn't tempered in the darkest depths of violence to the point that it simply became a state of being; she was, unfortunately, painfully aware of how easy it would be to break someone like her, to the point that it hindered her from trying. She mumbled something under her breath as Mordelain charged, a chant too low for the other woman to hear, and dodged the blade of the partisan as it aimed to skewer her face by jolting her upper body, not fully stepping aside as one might expect. It clipped the side of Luned's head, sawing off part of a tightly pinned braid and sending loose chestnut hair into her eyes, and before her opponent had a chance to draw it back, the scribe did something she didn't think she had in her: she grabbed the shaft with both hands, moving in an instinctive and fluid motion she didn't know she was capable of, and yanked the partisan toward herself and down, attempting to pin it under her arm and rid the enemy of her long range benefit. She wanted to get in close.

This plan went mostly as intended, at least; Mordelain wasn't expecting such a gutsy move and was almost tempted to let the little scribe simply have it after that effort, but the opening was too obvious not to take advantage. The woman jerked the partisan back, just enough to wedge the base of the blade under Luned's arm. Within that same action she twisted it, one of the impossibly sharp hooks digging firmly into the side of the smaller female's ribcage.

Luned cried out piteously, nearly losing the strength in her knees as the blade sliced effortlessly through cloth, skin, and muscle, but she only clenched the weapon tighter. Hunched under the gravity of excruciating pain, the scribe glared up at Mordelain as her hold on the spider silk grip sizzled, wisps of smoke curling into the air and marring the fragrance of the surrounding roses with burnt bitterness. When she drew her right hand away, flames swarmed her palm, and she whipped a dense, grapefruit-sized fireball directly at her opponent's chest.

Mordelain was in close enough quarters that Luned was able to aim quite accurately, and thanks to the woman's costume change, she was bedecked in a high volume of delightfully flammable, flowing fabrics, not to mention that beautiful, loose hair.

"I," the scribe growled, finally letting go of the partisan to lurch forward and send several more spheres of flame into Mordelain's person, "Am fear!"

[Resolve]

Flint recovered more quickly than Resolve expected, she had to give him kudos that he was fairly quick for man built such as himself, and she was sorely disappointed as his left fist met the soft flesh of her side with a potent strike. It wasn't incapacitating by any means but the girl couldn't help but gasp, grateful it didn't knock the wind out of her, but she was forced to take an involuntary step sideways to maintain her balance. She stumbled, her left ankle still tangled in his, but as she did so, she found an unexpected opportunity.

Her right arm now free, she attempted to hook it swiftly around the front of Flint's huge neck as she turned her unanticipated sidestep into a swoop that could allow her to grab him from behind. Using her left arm to brace the back of his head, preventing him from cracking it backwards into her face (she rather liked her cute little nose as it was), the exorcist endeavored to lock him into a tight chokehold. If successful, she'd squeeze as hard as she could with the fanciful intent to pop the skull right out of his head. Somewhere in the back of her mind, her subconscious even pondered his team name and jested how she might be inspired to commit some humiliating act of irony when she and Mordelain won.

Whether this maneuver worked or not, Luned's voice met their ears as she hollered something from the green.

"I am fear!"

Resolve cursed, her concentration disrupted. "Shit, Luned!" she grumbled, doing her best to hang onto her own opponent, but afraid to end things too quickly lest she be forced to face her friend.

[Warpath]

I am fear!

The ropes of muscle in Flint’s neck strained against Resolve’s arms, resisting the crushing force they steadily applied. He had scant seconds before her strength overcame his, heartbeats between that first press against his throat and the moment when fatigue and a lack of oxygen rendered him powerless.

A steady resistance would avail him nothing, so Flint relented and pushed himself back against Resolve half-heartedly. She had the better position and resisted his push – a natural response in this situation, and one she was prepared for. It was far less predictable when Flint reached up with one hand and instead of trying to pry her free as she expected, he clutched her arm to him.

That could only mean one thing, so Resolve had two options: lean her weight against his to try and keep him down, or let him loose. Flint supposed her too bold, too strong to relinquish a superior position, and he was proven right. Her weight pushed him forward. He smiled, despite the veins standing out on his head and the distressing color of his face. It was a shame to be so close to someone so fascinating, and to be utterly incapable of catching her scent. In fact, nothing about this was as pleasant as it should have been.

With his free hand, Flint reached out and curled his fingers into the minuscule gaps between the tiles, and pulled, surging up from his legs and shoving out away from Resolve. She was stronger than even her lean physique implied, but she was not heavy, and between her weight, her grip, and his hold on her arm, there was nothing for her to do but catch a piggy back ride and hope he burned himself out quickly.

That was becoming increasingly likely. The corners of his vision were beginning to close in, and every muscle burned for want of precious oxygen. His legs felt rubbery and lame, and beads of sweat began to flow into his eyes, and Resolve was feeling heavier by the second. Adrenaline was his ally now, adrenaline and fear of suffocation. Flint remembered the anger in those incongruous blue eyes, and suspected she would not quit squeezing, even after he stopped moving.

So Flint ran, as much as he was able, now clutching Resolve’s arms with both hands. He ran and, just as she figured out what he intended to do, he committed both of them to it by leaping into the air and twisting. The pressure on his neck loosened, and then Resolve’s back collided with one of the pillars supporting the gazebo, and then Flint’s weight compressed her, and then the pillar snapped in a spray of splinters and deafening noise.

The brawlers tumbled through the air on the other side of the now-shattered pillar, and then they hit the ground rolling. Flint took a handful of grass to stop himself and wheezed, sucking in air desperately. He blinked furiously, both to rid himself of tears and to chase away the flashing spots and darkness that dominated his vision. His first instinct was to put his eyes on Resolve – he couldn’t afford to get caught like that again – but every need fell away behind the alarming groan of failing wood behind him.

Flint turned just in time to watch the gazebo lean toward him, left unstable by the loss of one of its legs. It paused, as if to reconsider failure, and then it promptly decided that failure was a sound option. It collapsed, and as the roof struck the grass it collapsed into shards and splinters under its own weight. Years of accumulated dust and pollen surged forward in an all-consuming cloud, and that cloud rushed first over Flint, and then Resolve, and then continued until it ate up all sight of their respective allies as well.

[Mordelain]

For the second time in as many months, Mordelain Saythrou was assailed by malefic spheres. She was, for want of a better way of putting it, completely taken off guard by the plucky girl’s assault. The conflagration illuminated the whites of her eyes in the few fleeting seconds she had to acknowledge what was happening to her. Her head reeled in the surprise of being so easily out maneavoured, and in her partisan being so easily rendered blunt and worthless.

Mordelain, however, had survived Woompus Beasts and Praying Manti.

She had survived aeons of isolation in corners of worlds unspoken, and most certainly unimaginable to the paltry comprehension of Althanas’ citizens. She would not be undone by fire.

“I will not be undone by fear…” she roared, a bellow of defiance that plucked her, quite literally, from the world.

The fire and flame and brimstone rushed through the space where Mordelain had been, could have been, and should have been. It spent its impact against the gazebo, just as it began to teeter and topple down atop the scribe. It began to teeter and topple down over where Mordelain should have been, would have been, and could have been, had the Void not called to her.

With vomit in her gullet, and fear firmly burnt into her retina with a cheeky smile and a mismatched outfit, the planes walker appeared three hundred light years away on an all too familiar battleground. The infinite horizon awed her, its yellow sands rolling over gentle dunes as far as the eye could see. The sky was ochre, like burnt eggshells, and the wind in the air was soft, but riddled with the stench of decay and death and desolation.

“Hudde…” she whispered. There was reverence for the land on her tongue, and despair at the back of her throat for the ordeal to come. The Tama walked between worlds, by all means, but sometimes, it was a long and arduous path that could shatter the mind and body alike.

With a pensive thought, Mordelain placed herself in relation to the sun, the distant tower to the south, and the reeling sensation of being millions of miles away from where she had been seconds ago. The cracking sensation she felt when she slipped into the Void still tingled in her shins and soul. She rested the partisan’s stoic butt on the sand, and it sunk a few centimetres below the ancient desert’s surface. Once, this land had been a metropolis the likes of which would have dwarfed Althanas’ greatest civilisation. Now, after millennia of war and abandonment, it was the last place a criminal would suffer – a punishment some would say was worse than death.

“We meet again.” She said with a snap of motion. She trudged forwards, sweat forming on her brow beneath the ill-suited attire of the Troubadour. Though she would re-appear within a few seconds, minutes at most of her banishment from the arena, the journey for the planes walker would take the better part of the day. She trudged towards the tower, the only landmark for leagues, her heart sinking into her chest, and her eyes narrowed to blot out the glare of the seven suns, each more radiant than the last.

She cursed Resolve under her breath, wishing she could, for once, but whatever friendship or politic the two women shared, and gut the little wretch before human kindness got the better of them both. She glanced up cautiously into the glare every few hundred feet or so, because if her own heart didn't kill her, then the Rhymer Wurms and the Giant Vultures would almost certainly cut her participation in the Lornius charade short.


One use of her 'emergency' planes walk used - for the time being, Mordelain is currently on Hudde.

[Luned]

Mordelain vanished, narrowly avoiding Luned's assault, and the scribe let out of a stream of curses that was cut short by the realization that she would probably do best getting out from under the path of the gazebo. She turned and dashed to take cover behind the closest rose bush, her clothes catching on the thorns and reminding her to keep clear. Upon closer inspection, the spines on the plant were considerably larger than any she'd seen in person before, almost creating a sort of razor wire that effortlessly shredded the hem of her dress. She winced just thinking about what they'd do the flesh, then winced again as she turned her focus to putting pressure on the wound at her side. She did her best not to heed the crash of the gazebo not far away, nor give into the wish to check on Resolve and Flint. She didn't want to know.

There was a lot of blood, most of it soaked up by Luned's dress in a growing crimson blossom against the slate blue cloth, the rest coating her hands and arms. She gripped her side as tightly as possible with the feeble pressure of her hands and wished she had something to brace herself against, too afraid to give herself a real moment of rest. As she pulled up the side of her skirt and wedged it tightly against the wound under her arm, foregoing modesty for something to stop the bleeding, the cloud of pollen descended and turned the vibrant emerald of the green into a sick shade of yellow.

The scribe sneezed several times in succession until she was out of breath, her sinuses immediately flaring in the fragrant mist. Disappointed and endlessly frustrated by Mordelain's flight while straining to ignore the pain, Luned was at a loss of what to do next, and so she hesitated perhaps a little too long.

[Resolve]

By the time Resolve's feet were off the ground it was too late to prevent whatever her opponent had planned, so she hung on with the fortitude of a professional bull rider. Her grip lasted about halfway through impact but the slam of Flint's weight in the sandwich knocked the wind out of her, a cry muffled through clenched teeth as at least two distinct pangs in her chest heralded the impairing pain of freshly cracked ribs. Between the lack of ability to breathe and the feeling of being crushed alive, the exorcist barely registered the sensation of going completely through the support post, the world blurred until well after she landed hard on the grass. For a long moment it was all she could do to lay there and wheeze, gasping for control of her uncooperative lungs, clutching at her chest as if expecting to find it flattened.

The falling gazebo occurred in the peripheral of all her panicked senses, and it wasn't until the mushroom cloud of pollen settled over the green that Resolve finally caught her breath again. She allowed herself a luxurious few seconds to lay there and simply breathe, taking as deep of breaths as she dared, before struggling to her feet. Immediately her ribs acted up and she groaned as she stood, wavering slightly, and a fresh heat in her right shoulder alerted her to a rather serious injury that she must have obtained when she landed, but she couldn't remember. Her head felt fuzzy. All she knew was she needed to get moving.

The girl didn't know what she was up against in Flint, if that was all he had or he was keeping some tricks up his sleeve as she was, but she did know that she had an advantage in low visibility situations. If she caught him off-guard, she could get in an attack that would compensate for her injuries with surprise.

Resolve was surprised, as she felt out the area around her through her astral radar, that there were only two others present in the arena. The pain broke her concentration and she couldn't feel the presences well enough to know who was who, but someone was gone, not dead. Did Mordelain go for a walk? She cursed, hoping the woman made it back in a timely fashion to avoid any uncomfortable showdowns between friends, and staggered in the direction of the closest person, crossing all her fingers and toes that it was Flint.

And, of course, it wasn't. The exorcist grew out of the fragrant golden cloud like a phantom and discovered the little scribe hunched next to a bush, presumably attempting to find a better location from which to defend herself when Mordelain returned. Blue eyes met blue in a moment of unhappy recognition, and as Resolve inspected her friend and found her covered in no small amount her own blood, she suddenly felt all that anger return.

Luned simply looked up at her, wide-eyed. She was obviously terrified of her self-proclaimed best friend. She knew what this girl was capable of, she was the one who helped her learn how to control her abilities as a kid. And then, in a moment of heroic defiance, the scribe sneezed.

"Idiot," Resolve spat in exasperation, and she drew up a long leg in one graceful motion that sent Luned flying back into the thorny embrace of the rosebush behind her in a burst of white dust. The act of punting her gored friend into the shrubbery didn't soothe any of the frustration, to her disappointment, and she turned to chase after the second poor soul on her radar: Flint.

[Warpath]

There was a place in the grass, deep in the grass, where the choking cloud of dust and pollen did not reach, and that was where Flint buried his nose. He focused on filling his lungs and soothing the burn of his muscles: in slow through the nose, savoring the overwhelming smell of green and the rough tickle on his face, out faster from the mouth. The agony abated and his mind cleared. He was a little lightheaded, and his neck ached, but he was whole and breathing.

He tested his limbs before he put them to use, and found that with the free flow of oxygen, so too had his strength returned. He expected more harm to have befallen his back, but Resolve made an exceptional cushion. All-in-all, Flint counted it one of his least-worst brushes with death, and he might have been pleased except that when he narrowed his eyes against the brown-yellow haze, he could not see where his Amazonian foe landed. She was still mobile.

Flint snuffed in an effort to free himself from the pervasive tickle of too much pollen in his sinuses, but that was futile. He trudged toward the collapsed gazebo, combing his fingers through his beard to remove loose blades of grass, and found that his hand came away dusty. It seemed cleanliness was also futile. The stuff coated the inside of his mouth, turning his saliva into a grainy paste. He spat and made displeased faces.

The dust cloud was significantly thinner on the other side of the collapsed structure, the force of the impact having driven a majority of the cloud outward before its momentum was spent, and the barest hint had since begun to seep backward as the cloud dissipated. Flint hesitated, eyeing what was once the roof of the gazebo, now a pile of partially-collapsed wooden rubble. It took a moment to realize that the thin pillar of smoke rising from the wood was in fact smoke and not some strange configuration of dust and pollen, but the brute could not imagine how a fire was sparked.

Luned.

Flint felt his shoulders tense and he glanced back toward the cloud, brows furrowed, and then he shook it off. Resolve was not a danger to her, they were friends. Best friends. If anything, the slim bruiser was checking to make sure Luned was alright. What kinds of people did she associate with, if she had friends that would team up with strangers to outnumber her?

And then it occurred to him that Luned considered him a friend.

“Damn it, Luned,” he growled. He began tearing through the rubble with his bare hands, ignoring the cuts and splinters that got him, and then he yanked a long beam free. It was easily half his height, and three inches thick, which made it heavy but awkward to handle. It would have to do.

The brute crouched behind the once-roof of the gazebo and let his mind work. If Resolve had broken away to help her partner overwhelm Luned, the deed was done and rushing in blind would avail him nothing but a swift beat-down. No, he had to be patient, and bide his time. He would wait until…

He peeked between a set of cross-crossed beams, shattered like broken bones under their own tremendous weight, and saw a distinctly feminine figure emerging from the smoke. He mistook it for Luned at first – was that a skirt or…? But no, this silhouette was too tall, too confident, and it was not sneezing. One of his enemies, then.

Flint slowly slid back and waited, visualizing her approach. He listened, strained his ears, but knew it was unlikely he would be able to hear her footfalls on the grass. He risked another peek, and decided she knew where he was. Somehow, she knew. His mind raced. If he could not hide, this would not work. Unless…

Flint sighed and rolled his eyes at himself, shifting uncomfortably. He thought about it for a second, digging up old memories. What ridiculous things did people say and do after he broke them? It was hard to recall, he was in the habit of ignoring them once the grisly deed was done.

He attempted a loud groan, which to him sounded almost like a question. He hoped Resolve would hear it more as an injured man crying for help. Injured men had a habit of doing that. Maybe she hadn’t seen him after the collapse of the gazebo. Maybe she would believe he was crushed under it – pinned. He wondered what kind of person she was. Certainly one that finished a job: certainly she would come, but would it be to gloat, to help, or to take advantage?

He tried another fake groan, attempting to suggest Luned’s name in it this time. He imagined her laughing at him, and sneered. He risked another glance, just the briefest peek, and thrilled to see his enemy ever-closer – close enough that he was sure it was Resolve now. Just another moment or two…

And then he hissed, lunged out from behind his jumbled shelter, and swung his makeshift club, aiming high for Resolve’s legs.

[Mordelain]

A spear tip appeared in the arena. A shaft, spider-silk grip, and the associated hands followed it shortly after. As far as fate went, the partisan had materialised just in the nick of time. Mordelain flashed into view, more or less where she intended, and instantly regretted it. After a trek that had lasted the better part of four hours, the last thing she needed was to be thrown directly into conflict.

She barely had time to grit her teeth and brace herself for the inevitable collision between club and meticulously arranged attire. The image of Resolve flashed before her eyes, her companion prone on the ground, clutching her shins, and screaming in an agony that went far beyond pain and suffering. She heard the bone crunch, and the muscle falter, and a heartbeat skip in the battered ribcage of its owner. It skipped again when the club clashed with the pole-arm, and her body weight teetered as she tried to adjust, with a dancer’s guile, to take the force of the blow in the correct manner.

Every part of her body jolted.

“Resolve!” she roared, her sweat beaded brow glistening in the still glaring sun. Her word was part command, part concern, and part declaration. Somehow, her companion understood exactly what she meant, or perhaps, she just had common sense.

She leapt backwards, Flint’s eyes darting to the left at the newcomer, and swearing without the need for words and spit. His surprise and the relative lack of change in the daylight and battleground told Mordelain that it had been only a few seconds since she had disappeared. She did not need a fancy watch to tell her she was an unexpected guest.

“Where the hell have you been?” Resolve cried, her aggression, blunt and direct, turned to the very person she was trying to defend. “If you disappear one more time…” she seethed.

Mordelain had gone through quite the ordeal in the few ‘seconds’ she was gone. Her attire, sparkling and joyful when she walked, was now dusty, turned in places, and devoid of its splendour. Her arms, taught and muscular, were covered in scuff marks and minor bruises. She was dehydrated, hungry, and no longer in the mood for playing with coy little foxes, and their bestial, wolf like protectors. She was less in the mood for Resolve’s stoicisms and fervour, but she could wait to contend with that until after they emerged from the rose garden victorious.

Her eyes widened.

“The flowers.”

In her determination to uphold Resolve’s request to contend with her so called friend, she had forgotten about the tournament organiser’s message to her as she had crossed the threshold between ante chamber and amphitheatre.

“What about them?” Resolve asked, her curiosity getting the better of her. She stood, legs bent at the knee, arms splayed in a defensive stance, uncertain about wherever or not to interfere with their lock.

“They’ll mark your graves; that is what!” Flint said, pushing into Mordelain’s feeble barrier with a burst of strength that bellied and dashed the entire troubadour’s hope. The club rose so quickly, and so swiftly, that all she could do was leap backwards.

She vanished.

She re-appeared again ten feet away before the skull-cracking tip got the chance to crush her abdomen and render her childless.

Resolve and Flint both snarled in unison.

“Deal with your own drama,” Mordelain snapped, spinning her partisan about full circle as the vibrations of the Void brought her weary traveller’s body back to life. Suddenly, she was renewed, invigorated, and ready. She had spent too long running from the Desert Wyrm, and longer still fighting harpies in the Aerie of the world she had fled from to avoid fire and fear to be undone by petulant squabbles. She double checked Luned's whereabouts, and gave the little brat no more than a second's attention before turning back to the real opponent in the trestle lawn and madness.

She raised a hand, pressed the palm flatly at Flint, and then beckoned for him to advance. She took a deep breath, rolled her neck in its socket, and let the sound of the bells in her hat wash over her. She smelt of lavender. She smelt of blood, and she would come out of it all smelling like roses.

“Come now, junta, and try me on for size!”


Junta is the Fallien word for, to be crude, female genitalia.

One use of her Mordelain's combat escape utilised.

[Luned]

The oversized thorns tore into Luned's arms and back mercilessly, and as she wrestled herself out of the bush, she succeeded in goring herself even further. The pollen was in her eyes, nose, and lungs, her throat swelling, and planting her face in a cluster of the white roses only seemed to make it worse, though she couldn't help but notice even with her seared sinuses that they didn't quite smell like the ones at home. She tore several holes in her dress as she struggled free of the branches and onto her feet, revealing the puncture wounds beneath, coughing and wheezing all the while.

Something odd happened as she stood –– a shift in the world around her, a subtle darkening as if the sky suddenly went overcast –– but Resolve's scream of agony seized her attention, her gut lurching. Luned recalled the fact that they were in the midst of a tournament and the memory felt vague, her head fuzzy; how much blood had she lost, anyway? But that was enough to spur her into action, and she circled in a loose orbit toward the cluster of opponents. She caught glimpses of her crimson-clad friend on the ground between the swaying bushes, the other standing with a makeshift weapon, and they both shouted in the same direction at some unseen villain.

The air was nearly clear again, the cloud of pollen settled over the glen in a way that turned the grass a murky yellow-green, and the sky continued to darken, washing away the vibrant jasmine and replacing the world in drab browns and grays. It reminded the scribe of Ettermire and she nearly convulsed in utter repulsion, shivering in remembrance. The only good thing that came out of that horrific experience was meeting Flint; she would have preferred to leave the post-traumatic stress back in the sewers with the corpses and rats.

Luned's dress was in tatters, blue cloth mottled into a gruesome calico as her wounds drenched it in blood. Her upper body was coated in a fine layer of pale dust, something separate from the pollen, and if she was in her right mind, she might have deduced the fact that it must have been deliberately added to the bushes before the match began. She stepped out from behind a rosebush, looking very much like a ghost behind Mordelain's imposing, partisan-bearing figure.

And there she was in the sewers again, one of the mutant creatures standing between her and her friends. The old Luned would have wept, helpless and useless in the face of peril… but she was reborn, and for the first time she truly felt like fear itself.

Fierce and distraught, the scribe charged at the back of her opponent. Any semblance of recognition was gone from her features and she threw herself at the monster, losing control of the ability she forgot she even had. As fire raged from her dagger-bearing fists it caught everything in its path, her blood-soaked clothes smoldering, and she tore after Mordelain with full intent to take the woman and her wilted ensemble down with her in one last extreme expenditure of remaining energy.

The thick blanket of pollen on the ground caught flame and burned away in a dramatic ripple that burst outwards across the green, leaving the grass singed in its path and the air filled with a sour black smoke. It sizzled at Flint's boots and crackled at the remains of gazebo, and soon the collapsed structure would rise like a funeral pyre.

Lost to the world in her delirium, Luned went out with the fury of a kamikaze phoenix.





The dust is mallaku'akta, a poison mentioned here (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?18792-Rough-Guide-to-Fallien-1st-Ed&p=144363#post144363). Going in Mordelain's initial Hunger Games theme, we can assume it was planted by the organizers to make things more interesting.

The guide says "this will cause intense hallucinations as well as nightmares. The victim is usually trapped within a realm of their worst nightmare and the illusion is sometimes so real they will scare themselves to death."

[Resolve]

When Luned flew out of the woodwork in a blaze, Resolve was utterly stunned. So was her opponent in front of her, and when he twitched, then hesitated, she realized he was debating whether to go help or not. She didn't blame him in his pause; she had never imagined the little scribe could be so fierce, and while she was distraught at the prospect of potentially seeing Mordelain fall, she couldn't forget to pull her own weight. She owed it to her partner to give it her all.

As the ripple of flame tore through the grass toward her, she attempted to struggle to her feet, but all efforts were futile. Her body was useless to her now; at least one of her legs was fractured to the point she couldn't stand, her back was bruised, and her ribs still felt mangled in her chest. Now hot flame seared the dusting of pollen around her person, lighting her clothing as she laid prostrate on the ground. Resolve struggled to tear the loose end of her sari out of her belt, jarring her broken chest as she did so, the motion eliciting a wail that sang everything words couldn't of excruciating pain. She used the once beautiful fabric to douse the flames, too late for one of her thighs as part of her leggings torched against her skin and burned her flesh with a horrid aroma.

Resolve could have wept, there was no way she was getting back up and the pain was too much to bear, the girl never pushed to this extreme before.

And then Flint glanced back over his shoulder at her, his hard hazel eyes beckoned by her cries, and once again, the exorcist was able to focus what was left of her energy into her hate for this person. Instead of all her friends who surrounded her on the battlefield that day, it was her enemy who served as her anchor and renewed her sense of purpose. Flint might appreciate the irony later, after he recovered from the emotional trauma of having his soul forcibly torn from his living body.

Unable to stand, unable to fight with her hands and arms in the fashion of a truly honorable opponent, Resolve did the only thing she could: she exorcised him.

[Warpath]

Flint clenched his jaw and looked for an opening, any opening. The green was burning, he could feel the heat softening the soles of his boots, but his feet were of pale concern: something was wrong with Luned. He had never seen her embrace the chaos before, no matter how many times he’d coached her on becoming a thing of fear. Now he thought he saw his teachings in action, and fear found him – not of her, but for her.

This other woman was dangerous, fully evidenced by her wholehearted defiance even in the face of someone like Flint. This would be concerning enough, except that Luned was as much a danger to herself. Wreathed in fire and flames, there wasn’t much the brute could do to help her without lighting himself up, too.

And then someone cried out behind him.

Flint turned and narrowed his eyes. His adversary was broken and thus victory attained. A broken foe usually immediately fell beneath his notice, but Resolve had been different. She almost beat him at his own game, and he only won by cheating. He didn’t feel guilty about that – a man does what he must to survive and thrive – but it tainted the win. He decided he did not want this womanly paragon to die screaming. At least, not unless he had more a hand in it.

He began to march on her, forming a simple plan: a harsh blow to the head would render her insensate, preventing any struggle, and then he would rescue her from the bed of fire. Luned would think him very benevolent, and he would ensure a fair rematch. Later, he would break her properly.

Except that something went immediately wrong.

A sudden and profound confusion washed over him, and it took a very long moment for him to realize the source. It was when he tried to express his puzzlement, just by furrowing his brow, that he realized the cause. His body was sluggish in its attempts to obey him, even to do the most basic tasks. He wanted to walk, but his legs defied him. It was not weakness – the strength was there, the will was there, the pain was minimal – it was as if his own legs, his hands, his face were not his to command.

He tried to turn his eyes to his own hands, were they even there? Two heartbeats passed before his eyes turned downward, and another before his chin dropped, and then his brow creased though he’d begun to feel concerned many seconds past. He was afraid, but there was no surge of adrenaline and his heartbeat remained steady, and so the experience was cold and alien and calm.

The towering hedge-walls of the arena steadily faded into the darkness and yet remained unchanged, the darkness spread over the light without either consuming the other so that they could be perceived simultaneously. It was as if he had a second set of eyes, and they saw into a different world. Gradually the green faded away, and the new world dominated, eerie blue and grey and black, and the air itself was thick and still and tangible and interspersed with congealed whispers. It was where wind came to die.

In fact, the brute felt that the atmosphere itself was more tangible than he, that they had switched roles. He was faster and lighter than the breeze, and he could conceive of vast empty spaces in the matter that composed solid objects, and he knew he could slip between that world-stuff and pass through walls of wood or lead or steel and they would be less than wind to him. Now he recognized the cost, and to him it was unforgivably high: he could pass through those objects, but never influence them. All of his strength was stolen, gone in a way he hadn’t thought possible: he wasn’t just weak; he was nothing, a ghost.

He tried to run away, but when he turned he found himself face to face with himself. For a moment he forgot his fate and felt a fierce swell of pride at the thing he’d shaped himself into, and then he felt the loss of it. The ability to strike fear with a glance, the power to crush bodies and shatter a man’s universe, the strength to change the world, all robbed from him in an instant, and he couldn’t understand how or why.

I don’t want this.

He pushed back against these events with all of his being, and the universe lurched around him. He felt his essence dragged through space – without a body to harm it was just another sensation without context, neither good nor bad – and then the dark world-behind-the-world rushed away and he was on the burning green again.

He went down to one knee growling, raging. Now he felt a cold surge of fear, and his mind locked onto the only possible cause.

He raised his eyes, straining against the unknown, and locked his gaze on hers.

She hated him. It was hatred so ferocious that he didn’t know how to protect himself from it.

“You,” he growled, but his lips were heavy.

He tried to say more, but then his body fell away again as it collapsed into the smoldering grass and he tumbled through the ether, panicking in the detached way of souls. He willed himself forward and darted through the incorporeal air, but as the material world faded so too did all sight of his body.

He was alone.

Nononono

Flint wanted adrenaline, he wanted dread and pain and desperation, but all he could feel was a distant loss – a chilly regret. He couldn’t even make himself hate Resolve for what she’d done. All pride and sense of self were gone. If she were here, he would beg unabashedly.

“What are you doing here?”

Flint turned, and then recoiled. The shade of a dark elf stood against the vast plane of ether. She looked far younger than she had when he murdered her. He wondered what she saw when she looked at him.

“Ezura?”

“What did you do with my daughter? You told me she was killed, but I can’t find her.”

“She’s alive,” Flint said. “Luned saved her.”

“Oh,” the spirit said. “What are you doing here?”

“I think I died.”

“No,” she said. “You don’t get to do that.”

“What?”

“Death isn’t yours to have,” Ezura said. “You don’t belong here.”

Flint wanted to raise his chin and back away, but he didn’t really have one and space was just a concept.

“You’ll never belong here.”

[Mordelain]

Flames and famine were two things Mordelain Saythrou hated. She loathed the waste of life that came with nature's advance so much, that she now hated Luned more still for her recklessness. She watched the flames burn, until they could burn no more without burning her, too, and then vanished. She re-appeared, lithe and nimble, some ninety degrees around Flint. She would not give up her opportunity to fight an honourable fight, even if the world itself were engulfed in a maelstrom of heat and melting flesh. Her right would not elude her, not again.

In the brief moments she had vanished, to occupy herself with a long trek north from Bulganin's Wold Wood once more, she missed the crucial parts of a scene which unfolded between friends and enemies. She made to charge Flint, but then stopped, mouthing her surprise. The gazebo flickered in flame, like a firefly's tail burning out quickly, and the smell of wood smoke and freshly cindered grass clung to her nostrils. Honeysuckle on the far side of the gazebo caught flame along with it, adding a sweetness to the destruction.

It was over.

Mordelain slouched. Quite suddenly, all the fight left her like a scared antelope skittering across the savannahs of Hudde. Without warning, Flint, who had been a lethal thread mere seconds ago, dropped to the ground. For all intent and purpose, he appeared to be quite dead. The troubadour dropped her partisan and unsheathed a kukri, taking it firmly into her left hand with the grip of a titan. She approached, slowly but surely, with feet splayed and eyes glinting in the sun light. She resembled a stalking beast, edging towards its prey moments before it pounced.

“What…” she said loudly, in Resolve’s direction, “on earth, did you do?”

It was an earnest question. Given her last command to the plucky woman had been to contend with Luned, and not Flint, Mordelain found it immensely difficult to accept that it was anyone’s fault but Resolve’s. The swell of energy from her alone made the troubadour reel, though she knew nothing about its origins, or indeed, its purpose. She swerved in and out of the rose bushes as the petals danced a soft dance in the breeze which dropped down into the garden as the midday became the early afternoon.

“I should probably ask you why you did not do it sooner…” she added, her maudlin’ tone sombre and respectful. Though it was every bit her intent to kill in the rounds of the Lornius, she was still saddened to see the man’s lifeless, contorted, and cold body lying on the grass. She stepped one final step, and extended her toe out to tap him on the knee. She leaped back when contact was made, like a kitten toying with a ball of wool.

No movement or sound came from the body. Mordelain instantly relaxed.

“I…” Resolve said, her breath strained, her eyes fiery with zeal, “exorcised him…”

The term was familiar to Mordelain, but she had only seen the rituals that went with it, far from here, in a time of war the likes of which Althanas would never see. She narrowed her gaze at her companion, and pointed slowly over her shoulder. She was certain, from Resolve’s winnowing expression, that her intent had been understood. Though Flint was exiled from the arena, another, smaller, and more virulent conundrum remained for them both to contend with.

“Luned, I will give you one choice!” she roared, a strong, thick accent akin to a noble cry slipped from Mordelain’s lips. It was alien in quality, yet charismatic and strong. “Lay down your weapons,” or whatever magic the girl claimed as her own, “and concede.” Once, long ago, she would have stopped there, and made it quite clear there was no alternative. As a troubadour, respected across nine worlds, no-one ever disagreed with her. Nobody ever said no. Resolve turned very slowly to face her friend.

The little scribe, still maddened by the toxins inherent in the garden’s deadly décor, was clearly beyond the kith and ken of hearing Mordelain’s words. She could only shake her head solemnly, relinquishing Resolve to make her choice. She turned away, uncaring for what would transpire between them, and turned her attention to the nearest rose bush. For the entirety of their lack lustre engagement, she had been too frightened to touch them, too scared to enquire as to their purpose. Now, with Flint’s corpse at her feet, and the sound of a distant crowd rearing and relishing another death for their pleasure, she understood.

“I guess it’s almost ironic…” she held out a shaking hand to stroke one of the leaves. “I spent all that time in the Library looking for a secret that was as clear as day and as humble as a simple goodbye.”

When Flint had swung his makeshift club with the force of a hurricane at her torso, Mordelain had, quite by chance, planes walked to a realm called Petra. There, in a sky whale’s skeleton, she had spent three days trawling through the catacomb like libraries that contained the wealth of knowledge collected by the long dead Unary. She had delved into flora and fauna, investigated poisons and traps, and read accounts of the world’s, and all the worlds beyond. Nothing had been revealed to her, save for the funeral rites of thirty cultures, and the horrible wickedness of war.

She caressed the petal, and moved her hand down the flower to its stem. She snapped it satisfyingly with a twist and a pull. She pulled it close and nestled it on her bosom, as if it were her own heart revealed for all to see.

“For our heroes gone, and lovers reunited, may war be defiled by the simplest notion?” She recited the line she had favoured the most, from the Bedouin tribes of her newfound homeland in Fallien with pride and passion. She knelt. “You are gone from this world, though only temporary, but rest now, sire, and sleep.”

With a great heave, she pushed Flint onto his back. His meagre attire was outdone by her elegant, though singed costume, and his rugged looks and brutish musculature were counterpoised with her slender and lithe form. There was little in common between them, until the moment Resolve had claimed his life. Now, they were together in one precious moment; remembrance. She took a deep breath of honey scented air, and then reached out gingerly to cut a small piece of cloth from his clothing. She pocketed it quickly, for a memento, and then folded the man’s arms palm over palm over his clavicle.

She rose, stepped backwards, and dropped the rose onto his chest. It bounced with vibrancy and life, its leaves fluttering, its thorns refusing to penetrate skin or cloth out of veneration. The very second it landed, every petal, on every rose, on every bush changed colour. From deep, blood shot red, to a bright, porcelain white, not one flower remained unchanged by the sentiment expressed by the troubadour. Mordelain looked up, surprised, and shed a tear. One tear swiftly turned into an ocean.

She did not look up at Resolve.

She did not care if Luned lived or died.

She vanished, and left the memorial garden to long dead kings and queens of Lornius to grow anew, and forget that it had ever witnessed such horrors.

[Enigmatic Immortal]

Plane Curiosity VS Skull Fuckers

Plot
Story: 7/7 – The dynamic between Luned and Resolved really stole the show, and it didn’t hamper the thread’s other participants, but enriched the actions they performed as a whole. I enjoyed this thread very much and am pleased by what you wrote here as a collective whole instead of four people groping in the dark for progress.

Setting: 6.5/6 – I find the carry for this in Mordelain for the setting. You all did a superb job in creating a worldscape with which to play in, however it was at times tossed behind you in your mad rush to finish this story out. It’s one of those situations where your fun made you forget to bring it back to the fore. It happens, just be mindful in the future.

Pacing: 7/7 – There wasn’t a skip in the beat at all, and what few hiccups interrupted the pacing were quickly left in the dust as you all picked it up again. Good work.

Characterizations
Persona: 6.5/6 – This thread oozed charisma from every character, but the edge goes to Plane Curiosity. The reason that Luned and Resolved worked so well was a prior history, and Mordelain fit in well with Resolve. Warpath, your work with Luned before helped you, but the biggest reason Resolve and Luned stole the show could probably have something to do with the fact they’re both the same author.

Communication: 7/7 Great work between all parties, and the use of OOC really helped to keep you all on the same page.

Action: 6/5 – Action here was intense and well thought out, however Plane Curiosity really pushed the edge in this battle. Nothing new in terms of battle was really seen, but at least you kept it all consistent and I as a writer can appreciate that.

Prose
Mechanics: 7/7 – Didn’t really see any huge glaring errors outside a few missed words/punctuations and the occasional mis-spelt word or tense. Remember what Bookie McBookerson says: Proofreading can save lives!

Clarity: 7/7 – Here’s another category that you guys once again had zero issues performing well in. Nobody really had the edge here as I never was pulled away from the story more than once or twice but was easily sucked in. Softer word choices in the longer winded sentences can improve this category.

Technique: 7/7 – You both did great here as well, but I do have to admit, the OOC tags, while great to communicate with each other as well as with characters in the thread, do detract from the story as a whole. Those things really should be left in the PM’s and not in the story. As you both did this, you both suffered the same penalty of a single point.

Wildcard: 5/5 – I cannot give an edge to one side over the other here. You both did a fantastic job, and this is a close battle and the losing side shouldn’t feel bad at all for this performance. I am happy to have read your works and look forward to your writing in the future.

Score: 66/64

Plane Curiosity Wins!

Mordelain receives 1325 EXP and 80 GP
Resolve receives 1325 EXP and 66 GP
Luned receives 375 EXP and 64 GP
Warpath receives 375 EXP and 77 GP

[Mordelain]

Experience and gold added.