Round 1 Newcomer: Kroom Vs Shartnado

[Silence Sei]

Battle begins tonight at Midnight CST. Good luck!

[Shartnado]

Metal fingers clawed at a sky gone red, jagged nails darkly stark against the bruise and blush of evening clouds. What had been a steady breeze outside of the arenas now whipped through tunnels and ravines made of piled things. For a moment, Mai the once human girl wondered why she’d been sent here. Then she remembered what The Stranger had told her. She needed something special before she could enter the cabal, and until she entered the cabal she would never really be like him. Beautiful, she thought. Perfect, she decided. Those were the things she strove for.

And so, she left her bed in the middle of the forest and struck out to find something truly special. The tournament arenas, she’d been told, were formed of one’s thoughts and feelings, flaring to life to become a battleground of any kind. Surely in her heart she held something to please her vampire master. Her muddled mind, however, had created a mess of machinery.

The labyrinthian junkyard was made of mostly farm plows and rusted wheat thresher blades. As she walked further in, towards the dying light of dusk, she began to make out other things, though she didn’t have names for them. They were pieces of machinery that she often imagined when she listened to tales of Ettermire and the Alerian elves. Gleaming copper and steel peeked out from underneath weathered barn doors and wraps of barbed wire that had sprung free from splintered and split fencing. The reality of her past and the dreams of her future were melded here, a graveyard of a farmgirl’s mind.

[Kroom]

The fog in his mind formed one phrase, repeated over and over until his eyes hurt and his ears rang: find her, kill her, find her, kill her, find her, kill her, find her... Yet every time he thought the repetition had become unbearable, it quieted and softened, giving him reprieve. It was the fog, the dark mist in his head that had driven him here, and now he paused. He lurked in the twilight gloom, squatting on one slope of a particularly large pile of junk under the needless shade of a large piece of protruding sheet metal. His eyes flitted back and forth across what he could see of the junkyard.

The fog blotted out any question of 'why?' in his head. He didn't need to know or even wonder about why this place was here - wherever 'here' was - nor what it was. Nothing mattered except the drumbeat of mantra in his head. Jak had caught himself muttering it under his breath a few times, and for some reason that bothered him.

Shadows tickled the nape of his neck, and he mindlessly strung his bow and nocked an arrow. Everything felt calm, dull, almost opiated. Jak bit his tongue. It was odd: he could still feel pain perfectly well, yet everything was detached and without feeling, and he knew that if the fog had not been there to soothe him, he would have been unnerved.

The drumbeat quickened and grew louder in his mind, almost a shout. Find her, kill her, find her, kill her, find her, kill her, find her kill her find her kill her find her kill her - Somebody came into view at the base of another, smaller heap, maybe a hundred paces away. Find her, kill her! Without a second thought, Jak's bow sang and sent the arrow racing. He stood, already nocking another shaft and aiming. The panel creaked under him. Loosing the second shaft, the smith clambered down to earth swiftly, leaping the last few feet to put his feet on the bare dirt. He nocked a third shaft and began to jog. He couldn't keep sight of her, so he had to move quickly if he wanted to be certain.

The drumbeat had calmed now, that was a relief. It was an even, unending, reassuring pace for his feet: kill her kill her kill her kill her kill her... As soon as he saw her, he'd fill her full of his feathered shafts, without even a thought as to why. It was... strangely peaceful, not knowing or needing to establish why she had to die. She simply did.

The smith rounded the heap, coming in sight of the spot where he'd last seen the girl. He swung wide and kept away from the heap she'd been nearest, half-drawing his bow and keeping it ready to fully draw and fire.

[Shartnado]

The dirt had a cold embrace. Mai was stunned, staring at the furls and lines in a two by four that had been laying at her feet just a moment ago. A clang of arrow on metal and wood had been her only warning before the second arrow had hit her shoulder, ripping through muscle and flesh to leave a large angry gash. Half reflex, half the force of her pain, the milkmaid had fallen to the ground. She looked over at her shoulder as she heard the thud of feet hitting earth somewhere, her keen ears knowing someone was quickly approaching. The wound was barely bleeding, her blood congealing already. She'd almost forgotten that she was no longer bound to the realms of humanity.

In another lifetime, she might have been afraid. She felt no rush of terror, although she did feel angry. This bowman was making her search endlessly more difficult. She would have to be rid of him. Drawing on the unholy strength awakened within her, Mai leapt to her feet. The vigor of undeath was within her, after all. The shadows were cold and blue, lengthening as the sun set. Reaching down, she grabbed the two by four as she heard footsteps draw near. He was right around the corner. Though her arm ached, it wasn't completely useless. She drew back the wooden slab and sprang around the corner, throwing all of the strength she could muster into swinging the board like a bat, the air around it whistling as the edge advanced forward.

[Kroom]

The girl sprang into view and the drumbeat boomed in his mind, voices hissing and shrieking. Yet Jak was not disturbed by the din in his mind; if anything, it made his purpose even clearer. She rounded the corner, swinging wildly with a wooden plank as Jak released his third arrow. Frustration seared his chest as the shaft buried itself in the wood, and Jak pulled another shaft from the bag at his hip, nocking it as quickly as he could and aiming it at the girl's chest.

She was, what, ten feet away? Close enough that missing would be difficult. Jak loosed his fourth arrow.

Under the din of the drums, something hissed a concern in his mind. He could see the wound from his arrow: it wasn't bleeding. That had healed awfully quickly, hadn't it? What with the girl herself, anyway? Something was just wrong. The fog was suddenly strained, a mental membrane with something pushing at it from the outside with desperate strength. The something was dark, yet felt friendly. The fog swelled with strength and shoved the conflict down, reasserting Jak's imperative: kill her, kill her...

[Max Dirks]

Kroom advances to Round Two!

Shartnado lives on in the Loser's Bracket.