One Foot in the Grave (Closed to Cydnar)

[Faustuss]

Splendid, Faust thought. His bony features twisted into a grimace. The Citadel has a sense or irony. The moon hung heavy in the sky, silver light gleaming off of Faust's polished bones. Worn tombstones were scattered as far as the eye could see, sticking out of the ground like broken ribs. A graveyard. Hilarious.

Moments before, he'd stepped through the heavy oaken doors of the arena and into the pearlescent haze on the other side. With every footstep, the mist seemed to get more and more solid, congealing into damp earth beneath his skeletal feet. The lich sighed and pulled his rich, ebon robes a little closer around his frame. The fabric would be soggy for a week.

But, he reminded himself, he had come here to fight and test the extent of his remaining powers. He had plans for the world. Big plans. He needed to know just what he was capable of. His opponent was here somewhere, lurking among the headstones. He pulled his hood up and kept a hand near his knife. The darkness obscured his face, but the blue flames blazing in his empty eye sockets stood out against the shadow.

Let him come.

[Cydnar]

Death was seldom seen as blessing in mortal men’s eyes. Life, too easily, could be stolen away. Mortals of this world feared many things, but only death never failed to terrify. Monsters, gods, and world ending maladies were nothing over simple biological fact.

Amongst the tombstones of an illusory world, Cydnar Yrene reflected on that fact. He, unlike mankind, would never die from the advance of time’s cruel jest. No years would lay him low. His ancestry, a scorned mix of high and dark elf alongside his place amongst his people as an avatar of the snake Thayne Yrene – immortal.

Cydnar feared death from cruder means. A knife to the stomach. An earthquake’s crush. As he walked through midnight’s caress he took note of all the ways that others could lose their life. Tales told on tombstones tall. Sea perils, disease, and war. The monks had pulled no punches as they created the arena of war with gusto.

After a while, the tall elf began to smell sickness in the air. He stopped, robed and wicked in stance, and unsheathed his sword canes. Altheas and Freya glinted in the twilight. One blade, enchanted to detect magic, gave his opponent’s proximity away. So too did the scent, which elongated Cydnar’s fangs, and instilled him with a primal, zealous urge to eradicate unnatural magic.

“I can’t see you,” he said aloud. He turned on the spot, leather boots flattening moss laced grass and dew laden tufts. “But I can definitely smell you!”

[Faustuss]

“I can’t see you, but I can definitely smell you!” a voice called, cutting through the still air like a knife.

Faust bristled at the perceived slight. He might have been undead, but hygiene was still a priority. Even without an ounce of rotting flesh on his frame, it was tricky to keep the musty scent of old bones at bay. Regardless, it was rude to point out and he intended to make his foe pay for it dearly.

With one hand, Faust drew the iron knife hanging at his hip. The metal was poor compared to what the lich was used to, but the blade was long, curved, and sharp. It would still pierce flesh just fine.

As much Faust disliked his surroundings and their cliché reminders of mortality, he had to admit that they had their use. He’d been robbing graveyards since he was a youth. Necromancers had to get their components somewhere, and he couldn’t exactly stop in at the general store and ask for a half-dozen corpses to experiment on.

Raising both hands to the air, Faust muttered a string of low syllables. He sent pale blue tendrils of the unnatural force that animated his own frame into the dirt. As soon as he felt them brush against an empty vessel, he hardened his will and jerked the strands tight like a puppeteer. Slowly, two forms clawed their way out of the ground, moist clay clinging to their dingy bones.

Faust stared. Whatever he summoned definitely wasn’t human. Some grieving, pet-besotted fool had actually spent the gold to have their animals buried in a graveyard. A pair of zombie hounds looked up at him, cloudy eyes awaiting orders. But then, he reflected, there were worse servants than dogs. The creatures had teeth, claws, and were loyal to a fault. They could have their uses.

Smiling, Faust gestured to the hounds, and they shambled off in opposite directions. One would attack from the right and one from the left. He himself would stay hidden as long as possible, and wait for the chance to strike.

[Cydnar]

Cydnar expected an elf. High born, consumed by arrogance, and all too eager to suppress those lesser races. He expected a human, corrupted by the intolerable presence of magic he could never truly comprehend. He expected, above all, to be confronted by something he both hated and failed to understand.

When a hound appeared in his periphery vision he was relieved. Animals, though rare in the subterranean world he inhabited, were easy to understand. He turned, expecting a charge, and unwittingly exposed his back to the unseen assailant that lurked behind him. It took his senses only a second to adjust and highlight the true nature of the animal.

“Necromancy…,” he said softly.

Cydnar’s people had fought against Xem’Zund’s hordes in the corpse wars. Even over a decade ago, the sight of decaying flesh brought back memories of shadows, dreams, and dust. With an artful spiral, he twirled his blades through two rotations. He set one boot forwards, then bent at the knee. He crossed his geomantic blades, ready to defend himself.

Following primal orders, the hound burst into a run. Its skeletal legs carried it swiftly across moss mounds and through thickets of reeds that clung futile to the bases of the tombstones. Before it closed half the distance between its toxic maw and its prey, Cydnar conjured a sphere of umbra quartz the size of a melon.

“When will the living learn?” he questioned.

With a push, he propelled the sphere towards the hound’s skull with thunderous will.

[Faustuss]

Intriguing, Faust mused. Another magic user. The lich sat perched atop a crumbling mausoleum, one leg crossed over the other. He had dared to hope his opponent would be some sword-swinging brute, strong of arm but weak of mind. He was disappointed.

The fog was a mixed blessing. On one hand, it kept him hidden. On the other, it prevented him from seeing the battle. But it mattered little. The hounds were just the opening act. It was almost time for the show to begin.

In life, the hound had been a deadly predator. While death had increased its thirst for warm blood tenfold, the tendons and ligaments that drove its powerful legs had long since decayed. The beast detected the orb of black quartz a split second before it hit, and it wasn't nearly quick enough to avoid the blow. The crunch of splintering bone echoed across the desolate graveyard, and Faust cringed. The hound staggered to its feet missing most of its skull.

Of course, while one hound was occupying the dark elf, the other was lurking behind a tombstone. It waited until the moment its master's foe had cast its spell and lunged forward, rotten teeth snapping.

With the complete lack of self-preservation the twice dead tend to develop, the other hound staggered towards its target. While it was a little discouraged about its shattered cranium, its claws were fully functional. While its brother emerged from hiding, fangs bared, the wounded hound made a clumsy lunge at its prey.

[Cydnar]

Cydnar turned full circle, swords keened towards his enemies. Altheas sliced through the lunging hound’s nose, and Freya struck the side of the slinking, wounded hound as it dared to snap at the elf’s heels. Had the corpse of both dogs possessed blood, it would have sprayed in opposite arcs across the dew-laden grass.

“Lumday il-nak!” he roared. Snake fangs protruded from behind a grimace of fear and bloodlust. The curse meant ‘stay dead’, as much a question as a command.

The moon, bright as day and perfect as a pearl hung sultry in the sky. Gravestones, crumbling and new, continued a slow long march into oblivion without a care for the carnal sport that occurred in their midst. Before the hounds could recognise their plight, Cydnar leapt into a roll and freed himself from the pincer of surprise and decadence his opponent set upon him.

“Lumday dras-ta!” he grunted. His roll took away his breath and he righted into a low-knee bent stance. ‘Stay down’, he commanded, mind willing magic to cease.

With cold eyes that reflected the scintillation of the moon, Cydnar took stock of his situation. One hundred feet away, somewhere, his opponent pulled on delicate strings dark Fates presiding over his own fate. Ten feet away, a hound without a nose, a hound without a face. Both, through sickened magic, continued to snarl and lunge and stomp and howl.

“Show yourself, stranger.” He flicked both blades free of sinew and skull. “Let sleeping dogs lie low.”