The Art of Death (Cell Side Event)

[Mordelain]

Vignette will be open until October 18th at midnight. Rules and guidelines available here (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?25691-Vignette-Rules-amp-Rewards).

This Vignette is not available to combatants in the Cell tournament.


Write a death scene for your character as though they were in the Cell.

[Musashi]

This was a new experience.

Musashi had no recollection of how he had arrived in this, simply massive, mess room. Nor had he any idea who the five other's were with fire in their eyes, and what could definitely be felt as a murderous intent. One that had been vaguely focussed on the others in the room, slowly congealing into focus against what each would consider easy pray to start off with. A tactic Musashi knew to be flawed. Take out the mid-range opponents, have more endurance than the strongest and the weakest, let fall by the way side. That was the way to win.

This was not a tactic he had tested against five others.

Some invisible signal sounded and all the other combatants seemed to have their own plans. Two met forcibly in the centre of the large table, the sound of a bone (probably a rib), cracking could be heard from where Musashi stood.

Another ran, quickly chased by another, largely overweight male with a garish looking black barbed mace. The one running wasn't going to last long. the final was moving, cautiously but with confidence. Spinning a heavy longsword in his hand, getting a feel of his the hilt and moving closer, not cautious enough that Musashi's sword was still sheathed. He slowed, then sped up.

Step....

Step..

Step.

Ste-

The stranger attacked, swinging the weapon up and down in a quicker execution of a slow attack, not expecting anything like Idio. Occurring in an instant, Musashi's brown eye's swirled, the green expanding and pushing the brown of the iris to the side. The world slowed, there was a second where the combatant's clumsy attack would leave him not only vulnerable, but would welcome his death. Just as his hands and sword were above his head.

The flash of Musashi's Katana blade was almost two quick for his own perspective of reality, but you could see the blur of the blade cutting cleanly through the gut of the fighter left to right, as the curved blade came free of the wooden sheath cutting deep under the ribcage and through the stomach.

The shock was too much for the broadsword wielding fighter. Eye's wide as the hands clamped firmly around the sword but fell backwards to the ground. With a lacking of any flesh or muscle around his gut his top half fell backwards, hitting the ground a second after the sword and dying in what an unimaginable amount of shock in a pool of blood and stomach acid.

The large man and the runner was at the other side of the room. One looked to be throwing flames the other thrashing out with the violent weapon.The other two fighters were atop the table. It was foolish for Musashi to intervene, he stepped up anyway, walking patiently towards the duo. Hoping to get an easy kill of the both of them as the spirit of the room had taken over over his reasoning. His feet found a path to them all on their own. Pulling him into the fight. Both of them turned to face him, and he saw them for the first time.

The left, wiry and light was fighting with the right, Heavy but strong and breaking off from each other both of them turned to face each other. Charging towards the samurai Both took a different approach, The lighter assailent Bounced back from the simple jab that Musashi, the heavier chap fell off the table, slipping on the food covered dinner plate that was kicked beneath his path.
With a Simple hop forward and a higher swipe than the last, the steel destroyed the lighter combatant's eye's, Pulling metal through the bridge of his nose and pulling a souvenir onto the tip.
The heavier assailant, up gathering breath and with a Preconception of the barbaric act that he was going to do Musashi simply flicked his sword in the right direction. Dislodging the flesh towards the man's mouth, cutting off the unnecesary war cry before it even began.

The other two, now out of sight were the bigger threat to him. So it was time for a hunt. One that didn't last too long. Musashi starting to mutter under his breath.

"Come out come out wherever you are..."

The katana sword scraped it's point across the wood of the dining table, the only sound in the room apart from the choking gasps for air the dying man was trying to make for his brief existence. The air was flled with electricity, as each and every one of his nerves tingled with bloodlust and passion.

Then it ended, with an empty feeling of spreading warmth that slowly turned to a cold, so bone deep it demanded to be felt.

One of the others bounded up in front of him, catching Musashi off-guard and a for a split second he was the champion. But the Final fighter was in on it.

A pike, torn from the wall found its way into Musashi's side, tearing into both of his lungs and forcing him off of the table. With only his focus on the battle keeping him alive he stumbled further. bracing his side against the wall. His grip gradually loosening on his own sword. But not completely.

His gaze shifted back into focus, just in time to watch as another pole length weapon slammed into his chest, destroying bone and organs. Again, the momentum carrying him back against the wall. As a gout of fire erupted from somewhere beyond the growing black of his vision. Engulfing him in a once in a lifetime feeling of anguish which grew and grew. Skin started to bubble, then crack.

His attire singed, then it burned. The metal tangs of the weapons cooked him from the inside. And with a sickening pop: Musashi's last experience of the world and of true, unimaginable pain was when his heart simply gave up, and exploded.

[Simon]

He never saw the attack that felled him, but Simon knew he would not rise again. He could not feel anything except his cheek pressed tight against the smooth, polished, black and white checkered floor. His face was handsome, once. Now it was pallid, with circles darkening around the hollows of his eyes.

His body shuddered as he managed three quick gasping breaths. He thought of home. Of Radasanth. Of the green canvas stretched tight across a metal frame that served as his bed in the order's stronghold. He thought of the other initiates whose quests had taken them in a different, perhaps safer direction.

A pair of combantants drew closer, unaware of the paladin's toppled form on the ground. One of the two battlers stepped hard on the sundered iron plate that once protected Simon's spine. He gasped violently once more as a coldness suddenly rushed through the phantom nerves of his paralyzed body. It disappeared as suddenly as it came.

Should have bought steel, he thought with a grim sense of humor as he was trampled. He tried to muster a smile but lacked control over his muscles to do so. His eyes closed for a moment that felt impossibly long. The two warriors had moved in front of his face, though the dying young man could only make out their legs, so close they were.

One set was blue-furred with an articulated knee and the paws of a great cat. They moved with speed and grace. The other set belonged to an armor-heavy knight that clomped loudly and clumbsily as he frantically dodged and parryed the cat-warrior's ensuing barrage of strikes. There was no accompanying sound of metal on metal. One of the two warriors must have been fighting unarmed. The armored warrior then pressed the furred combatant back with an unexpected offensive, and the feline fighter trampled the side of the paladin's head, sending his conciousness spiralling into oblivion.

...

Did I fail? Is this all the end hath in store for me? Where is the light of heaven, and the soft feathered wings of angels? I long for the trumpets of archons, and the peace that was promised to me. Am I doomed to contemplate for eternity?

The blackness seemed to go on forever, and after what seemed like ages, a voice sounded in the darkness and drew slowly closer.

My angel, do you come for me now?

"Hey! I think this one is still alive!"

[Flames of Hyperion]

Hot blood.

Cold sweat.

Wet sand.

Dry tears.

Discordant cries of war grated upon raw synapses, accompanied in counterpoint by the disorienting song of steel on steel. Erratic gusts of misty miasma fanned his pallid cheeks with every heavy forward step. Breaths choked in his throat like stifled sobs. He could not identify those who hunted him through the fog that numbed his mind and his vision.

But he knew for certain that death beckoned, a long lost friend.

His foes swirled like gaseous shadow, featureless and hollow. Nightmarish red eyes tracked his every movement, endlessly accusing him of cowardice and heresy, mercilessly berating him for his every failure. No matter how he tried to defend himself, with every confrontation they slipped from his grasp with another shred of his resistance between their mocking jaws. Neither spell nor sword would discourage them. It was all he could do to cling to his memories, coveting the strength needed to soldier on in the face of such overwhelming hatred.

A cold hard shoulder barged into the small of his back, sending him flying into unyielding stone. Screaming and spasming in agony, overwrought muscles refused to obey his desperate commands. Somehow he managed to flop on his back, though at the cost of his blades slipping from fingers leaden and limp. He found himself staring helplessly upwards into bloodshot serpentine pupils and a lustfully feral grin full of filed fangs, poised for the killing blow. Words of power fumbled upon the dry slug of his tongue.

Then something else slammed into his attacker, something blurred and behemothic and bestial. Life fountained from broken remains, staining the sands in sticky wetness and the stench of relaxed sphincters. Beady eyes glanced hungrily in his direction, but apparently his saviour did not deem him worthy prey. Cold mist swallowed it whole, once more into the raging melee.

They might have been men once. But something had twisted them beyond mortal limits, enslaving them to their warped fury and bloodlust. Now they thought of nothing but the kill, of the thrill of the hunt and the ecstasy of survival.

He too might have been a man once. But despair had driven him alone and fleeing into the blinding blizzards of Berevar. And whatever sorcery had dumped him in the midst of this nightmare had taken advantage of the weakness that left him staggering on the very brink of sanity. The hallucinations continued, and he was in no condition to fight them.

Limbs trembling in rebellious infirmity, he tried staggering to his feet. He had to keep fighting. He had to keep...

Movement to his right, drawing his attention like a beacon in the night. But the death scream came from the left, a long gurgling keen terminating in abrupt silence. Frosty terror caressed the back of his hand like the lover he'd never had, infiltrating his head with the odour of fresh brimstone.

A sixth sense screamed an incoherent warning. Mystic words conjured a barrier of whirling wind, barely in time to repel the seven shifting shadows springing from on high. The fog rolled in once more, obscuring his foes beneath a blanket of delusional anonymity, but not before cabalistic sigils on a heavily tattooed leg seared his mind. He had spent long ages fighting grotesques and monstrosities of every description; now he could not see those he fought as anything else.

His world deteriorated into a flurry of fluid movements and rapidfire incantations. Pure white brightflame joined the winds under his command, virtuoso pyrotechnics blossoming in staccato succession to keep his foes at bay. Some simply countered enemy magics in suppurating null fields; others crashed into defensive wards or swept aside onrushing foes. Stray pyres started to feed upon the corpses of the fallen, their body liquids steaming in plumes of noxious fume. Blood streamed from his face as sheer effort took its toll.

The smoke cleared and somehow he stood alone. He breathed deeply, nearly gagging on charred flesh, smouldering excrement, and tinny blood. Voices whispered and laughed on a nonexistent wind, tittering in the fringes of his ears. Unexpectedly they struck a nostalgic chord, flooding his mind with ancient sepia-coloured memories. His family back in Nippon. Days of idyllic happiness at the Academy. Years of wandering exile that followed. The three moments of reunion that had made it all worthwhile.

Tears travelled the creases of his gaunt features.

Strength seeped from his muscles as he sank first to his knees, then to all fours upon the defiled ground. He had to keep fighting. He had to cling to his dreams. He had to...

The lance, three body-lengths of honed adamantium, came flying out of nowhere. He barely had time to look up before his wards shattered like glass.

Pain... agony... no. Only a frozen block of ice, growing in his chest. He looked down, spewing blood, to see the stock impaled up to its grip through his stomach.

He would have sighed, but the sound instead escaped his parched throat as a weak laugh. He hadn't used his voice for months. A rational corner of his mind marvelled at how hoarse and alien it sounded.

The last of his strength deserted him. Gravity claimed his body, dragging it backwards down the lance embedded in the arena sand, leaving a messy trail of bloody entrails and voided faecal matter on the glimmering silver. The rich stench wafted about him like a funeral pall, until he could smell it no more.

He didn't want to die.

He wanted to live.

He wanted to see her again.

To hear her voice.

To see her smile.

But the void beckoned, and he had no choice in the matter. Spectacles slipped from nerveless features... not that he had need for them anymore, since he could barely even see shadow. The final vestiges of his life trickled down his limp limbs, spilling like drizzled rain upon the dusty earth so far below. His last conscious act was to summon arcane flame to immolate the remains of his physical vessel. His last conscious sensation was to glory in the release of pent-up power as it swelled into an inferno that consumed the entire arena whole.

Kayu.

Wet tears.

Dry sand.

Cold sweat.

Nothing.

[hoytti]

First off, thank you all for participating in this special vignette. I'm sorry for the long wait. The winners for this vignette is Flames of Hyperion and Simon.



Musashi gets 100 experience and 50 gold

Use of topic: Finished on topic.

Creativity: The use of Mysterious Fire made it for me.

Mechanics: Many spelling errors, especially at the beginning

Notes: You wrote a full cell. To some that would be interesting, to others it is excessive. Please watch that as it could come back to bite you in the butt.



Simon gets 160 experience and 150 gold

Use of topic: Creatively Done

Creativity: Never seen someone die by trampling in the Cell, well done.

Mechanics: Few spelling errors.

Notes: It flowed well throughout the post.



Flames of Hyperion receives 1100 Experience & 200 gold

Use of topic: Supreme

Creativity: The use of metaphors was creatively executed.

Mechanics: Few spelling errors

Notes: The use of the two-word phrases at the beginning and the end of the post was an eye catcher.

[Mordelain]

Experience and gold added.