Newcomer Bracket: Callan Vs Kroom [Archive]

Kroom

05-10-14, 08:08 PM

Jak spat when the gate clanged behind him, feeling the mud squelch beneath his toes. The sword in his hand was unfamiliar to him, but of a style he'd seen before: short, double-edged, and sharply curved about two-thirds up the length of the blade. A 'sica,' he'd heard it called. Looking at the blade's tightly tapered point and pronounced slashing arc, he was surprisingly pleased. By all appearances, the blade wasn't shit-steel, and the throb in his finger attested to the edge. If he was lucky, he'd deal with the other man quickly and then carve his way out of this shit-hole with that edge.

The smith rolled his shoulders and bounced as lightly as he could in the mud, testing his footing. There would be a good chance that he could slip in this muck. The day's meager sunshine hadn't fully canceled out the rain of the day before, and there was still more than enough wet earth under his feet to make a fight problematic. The shield on his left arm was a novelty, too. Jak hadn't used any sort of proper guard in that hand in a long time, not since his teens, traveling with Teiran.

The whole damn was uncomfortable and unfamiliar. Jak had earned some silver in fighting pits before, but he'd always chosen to enter those – he'd never been coerced. Coerced. He smirked. Kidnapped, more like. If he was lucky, he hadn't left Corone, but there was no way for him to be certain.

The smith turned and, with slitted eyes, smiled back into the iron grate separating him from the other unlucky sods roped into this venue. It didn't matter if he could see that slimy bastard claiming to 'own' him. All he needed was to send the message.

Jak wheeled and looked up at the crowd huddled under a gray sky. With a begrudged motion, he lifted his sword arm in a salute.