To Sharpen the Sword (open)

[grim137]

Open to any one person. You can set the arena. If you beat me ICly I will transfer 300 gold to your account. Takes place before the events of Wanting Again (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?25674-Wanting-Again) (which is also open).

It was early in a cool, quiet morning when a horse drawn carriage pulled into up to the entrance of arguably the most famous building, the magical towering Citadel. Fighters came from all over the world to fight in its hallowed halls where the majestic, magical monks could bring any arena to life, no matter how intricate or complex it was. Of course the biggest draw was what happened if you lost the fight. No matter how battered and mangled you're corpse was, what kind of injuries it had suffered or what had caused them the citadels monks could bring you back to life.

It was no wonder that the building attracted men and women of all races and walks of life. From young adventurers looking to become famous to take on the greats, to tired veterans looking to relive their glory days and prove they were still just deadly and dangerous as they were in their youth, to thrill seekers who wanted the rush of adrenaline that came with battle with out all the nasty side effects such as getting your limbs hacked off or dying.

Then there were those like the now lavishly dressed Xanbata Grim stepped out of the carriage in grand style. The hedonistic noble tossed the carriage driver a gold coin before waving the man off and sauntering up the marble steps to the entrance of the great building as if he owned the place. Xanbata Grim didn't care about fame and fortune. He considered the former to be more of an annoyance than anything else and he'd long since obtained the latter.

He also wasn't there to prove that he knew how to kill since he was a predator at heart and even though he'd recently taken a shine to the lavish and eccentric life style that he choose to live in hopes of curing the crippling boredom he'd begun to feel in recent years he still knew how to kill. The problem was he wasn't quite sure if he still knew to fight. Sure he'd dueled a few nobles and feasted on their followers but this was hardly the same thing. Most of the people that he'd sliced and diced in recent years barely knew which end of the blade was supposed to go into the other guy. Cutting their heads off was hardly any different than decapitating a mannequin.

Normally this would be fine. Xanbata Grim liked to believe that he could appreciate the simple things in life and slaughtering a bunch of spoiled brats and the whores who kept them company certainly fell into that category. Unfortunately even those pleasures had begun to wear rather thin. This had led the former soldier, mercenary and serial killer to seek some other forms of entertainment such as an agreement to stage a massacre on behalf of a major crime family. This mean that like the blade itself, he was going to have to sharpen to the skills he used to wield.

The monks magic made the citadel the perfect place to do this. Here he could fight and kill until his heart was content without any fear for the consequences. He'd already been to hell once and had no desire to go back again.

Xanbata strode through the large, ornate doors. His with each step he took his the sound of his heavy booted foot echoed off the marble halls.

“Can I help you?” asked one of the monks. A small, portly, balding old fellow in dirty white robes .

Xanbata smiled a toothy smile and looked down at the monk. “I'd like to reserve a room,” said the hedonistic vampire as he continue down the great hallway.

“Very well,” said the monk, “and who will be joining you?”

“I don't know yet.”

“You...don't know?”

“I don't know,” confirmed Xanbata “but I do know that you have all manner of glory seekers coming here at all hours. Tell the next one that comes through those doors that there is a 300 gold bounty on my head. This fee will come out of my coin purse of course. If they don't take the bait tell it to the next guy. Eventually someone will want to take you up on your offer.”

The monk nodded. “I see. This is somewhat of an unusual request but we should have no trouble accommodating you sir.”

By now the two had arrived at their destination. A plain looking oak door with a simple brass handle. The door was a number and on the handle were a couple of strange markings. Of course Xanbata knew what was on the other side. He'd been to the citadel several times in his past life. On the other side was a blank room that reminded him of a large three dimensional canvas. It would come to life once the monks applied a little bit of magic to it.

“Surprise me,” said Xanbata Grim as he stepped turned the brass handle and stepped through the door.

[Ruby]

There was deftness to the way Ruby Winchester walked. She carried herself with a youthful vigour that belied her age, each step a buoyant bounce, each advance an airy ascent. For her excursion to the Citadel she wore nothing more than black trousers, which stopped just above the ankle, and a flowing white blouse, undone several buttons from the neck. Gone was the pomp of her noble self, and adornment was absent, save for a singular golden band that tied her grey hair into a silken ponytail.

“Oh lord,” she groaned, upon seeing the arena that awaited her.

The matriarch of the Winchester household loathed two things in the world. The first was tyranny. The opulent excess of control and drive to enslave others. The second, which was a hatred she seldom admitted, was mud.

“You’ve got to be kidding me…”

Her voice was torrid, full of contempt and sudden realisation that today was not going to go as to plan as expected. The spell singer stared intently at the landscape. There was a horizon, though nothing remarkable jutted out from it. There was a wide bridge ahead. It was nothing more than pine logs still wearing their bark strapped together with logs. It served as a solitary route to the distant portal, and the only safety from the vast pool of thick, likely perilous mud. It stretched as far left and right as Ruby’s keen eyes could see.

“Somebody is out to make my life difficult,” she clucked.

Setting herself to the task ahead, she began to walk out across the logs, her sensible black flats sturdy on the bark. The decision to wear something more appropriate for gutting brigands and slicing atwain wizards became more and more justified, and though she looked plain compared to her usual colourful display, the proud, cocksure, and woefully bitter Ruby Winchester advanced into uncertain, muddy waters. She clicked the fingers of her right hand, conjured the elven blade Lucrezia, and took it into her confidence.

Its mithril blade danced with fire, reflecting the light of the sun overhead as it illuminated the desolated, sodden landscape. With a stoic swing, a cut, and a thrust, Ruby tested its weight. With her handmaiden by her side, she cast aside her reservations and nerves about the mud, and found inner strength she had come to call upon repeatedly in defence of her virtues and her family.

[grim137]

Xanbata Grim had only been in the room for a moment when it began to change. Before the monster's very eyes the arena expanded and changed. It warped from it a plain white room into something else entirely. The ground underneath Xanbata's feet morphed into wood and before he knew it the swordsman found himself standing on a bridged made of what appeared to be trees, about three or four shoulder width's wide that had been chopped down, crudely dismembered and hastily strapped together.

Around and above him the air grew cool and the sky grew cloudy. Below him everything turned to mud. Dark, bubbling, sinister looking mud. Out of curiosity Xanbata broke lose a piece of bark with his toe and kicked it into the mud. And just as he expected he watched as it was hungrily consumed.

It wasn't until the vampire looked up again that he noticed his opponent. A lithe looking young gear with a number of nice looking features. She stood about his height, give or take a couple inches, and was naturally a good bit leaner. Though she was still too far away for him to fully examine her he could tell that while she was ragged veteran, she also wasn't some dainty princess who'd never been in a fight either.

His initial instinct told him she was a sorcerer of some sort.

“Great,” he thought with just a hint of sarcasm “those are always fun.”

At least she looked fun. Xanbata drew his blade and moved forward slowly, restraining the urge to rush forward and just go for the throat. If his hunch was correct that would just end with him ending up on the wrong end of something rather nasty.

As if to confirm such thoughts the woman's blade erupted into flames and his eyes widened. The deadly creature hated fire, probably because it was one of the few things that could actually kill him. If she was a pyromancer that meant that he needed to end her quickly lest he wanted to be the one getting roasted and served for dinner.

“Damn shame...” he thought, that soft skin of hers looked like it would have felt good and probably tasted even better. Oh well, at least the mud would probably enjoy her company.

Xanbata Grim raised his blade into a defensive position but this was more to protect him from wooden shrapnel that was likely to come from his next attack. The backs of his hands cackled for a moment as he channeled his dark energy into them. It was a familiar and pleasant sensation, one that he hadn't let himself feel in far too long.

Soon the cackling came to a head as a burst of dark blue energy and a deadly blast shot towards the young woman's feet. Xanbata didn't know how strong the wood was but the way he figured it one good blast should have been enough to make the bridge give way and feed his opponent to the mud.

[Ruby]

Her opponent’s onslaught made short work of the bridge’s barky surface. Shards and splinters burst outwards, and Ruby had to react with reflexes she did not know she had to cover her eyes from the projectiles. She stepped back, instinctively retreating with tactical luck, and when the pitter-patter of falling wood ceased, she dropped her arm.

“It is usually polite to introduce yourself when meeting a lady,” she glibly reminded. She was in no mood for incivility, not here, and not now. “With such bluntness, I can only assume you are not here to engage in theoretical debate.”

Her opponent would not know her name this day. She would be a nameless conqueror or an unknown meal to her foe. She threw her sword arm wide, and immediately, a thermal rose up around her. It whipped her blouse to life, and her hair to malice. She took on an air of graceless strength, forged by swelling magic as old as the Citadel itself.

“My name is hatred, wrath, and ruin, my namesake death and doom. My heart is forged in incivility, and buried in love’s tomb.” Her voice became a song, the words finding their feet, in perfect tune, with years of learned practice. Her sword stopped shining. Her heart stopped beating. Her eyes stopped telling of her inner emotion. For a moment, Ruby Winchester became the song, and the history of the blade singers flowed through her.

“Maybe not as fun as I’d like,” the vampire muttered.

“My life is full of calamity, but my future’s full of grace, I’ll ascend to godhood someday soon, when you’re scoured clean from this place!”

A blast of wind struck Ruby from behind, rolled down the bridge towards the vampire, and carried with it a fell scent of death. The spell singer punched forwards with her free hand, projecting all her aggression into a single, concussive force unseen by eyes and heard only as an afterthought. The Rampant Requiem, Ruby’s solitary means of long ranged offence, rolled forwards. It struck the bridge just beyond her opponent’s first strike, and shattered the wood. It bounced, struck again, and continued to roll turbulently, and tumultuously directly forwards.

“I’ll teach you some manners,” she said softly, picturing her opponent as Duffy, the only eternal source of frustration the spell singer suffered to live. She bowed at the knee, levelled her sword to the sun, and watched the chaos unfold from behind a defensive stance.