Woe to the Reckless

[Fenris]

((Closed to Cyrus. Anyone thinking "Fenris is an idiot with a deathwish" is justified.))


Branches and leaves, vines and ivy, whipping and lashing and rushing by. Fihrinn's arms swung firmly at his sides as his legs forced him on, forced him on, faster and faster they forced him on.

Through ragged gasps of breath, he grinned a toothy smile.

His heart pounded hard and strong, driving his blood with the strength of a snow-swelled river, and in that blood flowed hot flames of adrenaline.

The miles had flown by behind him. Ten, maybe more. And he couldn't stop.

Stride after stride, leap after leap. Had he had any breath to spare, he would have laughed. He couldn't stop. He was driving himself to his peak, and it was amazing. His eyes were on fire, swallowing every movement in the woods, every detail--

And then the trees ended.

And then there was the Citadel.

He skidded to a halt and smiled widely. Brilliant.

He rushed into the vaulted atrium of the temple, gasping for breath and softly laughing from the thrill of the run. He was alive.

One of the monks eyed him with an eyebrow raised. "Can I help you, sir?"

Fihrinn continued to gasp and chuckle. "Any...openings?"

The monk clasped his hands and turned toward him. "What kind of match are you looking for?"

The wolf smiled. "I'm feeling like a...challenge today."

The monk smiled curiously--his eyes gleamed.

"I might be able to oblige you, sir."

He turned toward one of the hallways, gesturing over his shoulder with one hand.

"Right this way."

[Cyrus the virus]

((Sorry for the wait!))

The air was hot enough the Luc found it hard to breathe. Each breath was labored, at least until he had the sense to thin the air with his magic. When he’d done that, the mage had a chance to take account of his surroundings and familiarize himself with the arena.

Again, the monks had stuck him in some organic respite. What was the sense in it? If he wanted to go to a rain forest or a jungle, Luc Kraus had the means to do it in minutes. The Citadel was a place for unique experiences and over-the-top ideas, not some boring, hot forest. He groaned, frustrated, and soared effortlessly up to see if there was anything else worth looking at. There wasn’t.

The jungle was thick with deep green flora; heavy, wide leaves draping down like awnings, dripping condensation onto the soft soil. Many of the wet, leathery leaves were bigger than his head, but instead of finding it fascinating, Luc was altogether bored. There was no sun – in fact, the sky itself was grey – but some mystical Citadel power provided a fair amount of light.

His clothing was almost attached to his skin, his sweat had made them sticky. Luc cringed at the disgusting feeling he got whenever he bent a joint, so he summoned a powerful breeze to blow past and quickly dry him. The wind seemed to linger and surround him, keeping him dry and comfortable, but the effect took so little of the mage’s focus that he was almost unaware of doing it.

A moment passed and he was on the ground again, his boots sinking into the fertile soil. He could feel the lively earth beneath him as if it were physically tickling his mind. It had been so long since he’d felt such pure potential that he was almost thankful for the arena. Almost.

“Come on, then!” he demanded eagerly. The soil below his feet was swirling constantly, dancing to his abilities, but he didn’t notice.

[Fenris]

The doorway opened--

And he almost gagged. The humid air hit him like a charging bear. He stepped into the thick heat, the door vanished, and instantly his fur was damp and plastered to his skin.

How can so much possibly live here? he wondered.

And yet, it did nothing to curb his still-blazing adrenaline rush.

He darted into the jungle, heavy wet vines slapping against him, grotesquely large insects buzzing by his face. It was incredibly hard--so many scents, so thick and rich and everywhere--but there was one that didn't belong.

Human. Male. Ahead.

It wasn't long before he saw the target, standing ahead between two gargantuan trees. Fihrinn crouched behind a screen of ferns--

The human vanished.

The wolf blinked. He had...flown...

He turned his gaze upward and could barely see the man's form against the luminous ashen sky.

By the... A magic user. A good magic user.

He was in over his head.

Thank the moon I can't die here...

And then the rather vexing dilemma. How to catch an enemy in the sky.

Well...get close as you can, I suppose...

He leapt onto a treetrunk, digging in his claws and working his way higher. Perhaps it wasn't the smartest course of action--

But it was hard! Several hundred feet up, his limbs burned with the exertion.

He loved it.

[Cyrus the virus]

Somewhere deep down, Luc enjoyed the suck of fresh dirt around his boots. The jungle presented him with a myriad of sensations he didn’t often have, of wariness and a lack of perception. It was hot and sticky, worldly, but different. That didn’t mean he liked it, but it was at least somewhat amusing.

The impressions of his boots evaporated behind him like steam. Subconsciously, Luc was removing them as he moved onward, the soil adapting to his very being and shifting according to his thoughts, filling out the steps. It was faint enough in his mind that he didn’t realize it was happening.

“Not showing up?” he bellowed. The jungle absorbed his words.

A shrieking noise cut the air from someplace deep in the jungle. The arena was alive, precisely like one of Althanas’ jungles, as if it had been torn from the landscape and put here for Luc’s amusement. The only difference was, when the mage’s opponent was dead, he would be brought back to life later. It was a pity, he thought, but finding men roaming the jungles of Althanas was not usually easy, and it was better to be safe anyhow.

After a brief time, he sighed. It didn’t seem like his opponent was going to show up. If things didn’t get interesting soon, he thought, he might take it upon himself to put his anger toward the fauna. The mage placed his gloved hands on his hips and gazed through the thick wall of trees.

“Come on, now.”

((Luc had landed by that time in your post.))

[Fenris]

"Not showing up?"

A voice echoed through the forest's clamor. Fihrinn snapped his head around and snarled.

Cursed flying human, can't even stay still for a...

He leapt from the tree toward its neighbor. He never got to do this kind of thing when he had to worry about falling! His claws dug into the thick red bark and he slid, gritting his teeth as his claws threatened to detach from his fingers. He leapt again, to another tree, to another...

This was harder than he'd expected.

He'd seen other people pull off such feats before--humans even--but by the moon! This wizard might not have to kill him at all.

He hoped to the heavens the jungle would be loud enough to mask his rather embarrasing barely-controlled fall. He had to keep moving, keep exerting, before the adrenaline faded.

Wonderful, Fihrinn. You can't even manage to fall correctly, and you're about to take on a mage...

Speaking of which. He was only twenty feet up when he came into view of the human again.

Here goes...well, everything...

He lunged. He leapt out into the open space above his target--

And fell.

((aaaand this is where it gets painful...*braces self* ))

[Cyrus the virus]

Luc felt himself buckle, suddenly, felt a heavy, hot thing fall on top of him. Luc’s body crumbled to the mud under the weight, his face meeting the soft, claylike substance. Luck alone had saved him from death, as the wolf hadn’t landed on his head. It had landed on the back of Luc’s shoulder and driven him face-down, cracking a rib and pushing the breath right out of the mage’s body.

At first he could do nothing but writhe in pain, gasping for air. He’d been caught by surprise, and the realization made him furious.

The pain was drowned by his anger. Desperate to escape, Luc manipulated the mud beneath him to push up, propelling him to his feet and throwing the canine from his back. He would have fallen backward, but a gust from behind kept him on his feet, the elements around him moving of their own accord.

He could feel waves of pain reverberating through his body, but did his best to ignore it. Luc turned and saw the creature, thought it strange that he hadn’t heard it coming, then quickly considered the possibilities. Could his opponent be inhuman?

Figuring it was best to be safe about things, he decided to do away with the wolf and then tend to his wounds. He motioned his hands forward from behind his hips, as if he were splashing water in a shallow pool. In response, the mud at his feet reacted just as water would have, splashing forward in short arcs. The mud, however, hardened and sharpened as it traveled, each ‘stream’ becoming like a long knife.

It was like a dozen long, pointed fingers reaching up and pouncing toward the canine, anxious to dive deep into its flesh and rend it.

[Fenris]

The shock of impact jogged Fihrinn's mind, and for the briefest moment his vision blacked. He heard a loud snap or two, but wasn't sure if they were his bones or the human's...

But even as his vision cleared, he felt movement, a shifting, and then force. How could that much strength have come from such a small body? The blow threw him back like a herd of bulls all bucking at once, and yet the human somehow stayed upright--

His back plowed into the colossal trunk of a scraggly-barked tree, and this time there was no question whose body the cracks were coming from. The pain blazed through his back, his limbs--

And then he saw the mage raise his hands, saw him push them forward, saw the earth turn to sea, saw the mud become knives...

He was in way over his head.

It was like watching his own life end. No--it wasn't "like." It was. There were too many, too fast. He actually wondered what it would feel like to be shredded by mud.

And then a great, rusty roar shook the jungle.

Colossal roots, like impossibly thick serpents, erupted from the earth in a shower of soil. Before the shock could wear off they had already wrapped around him, started to squeeze, begun to bend his bones to breaking. He didn't even try to understand what was happening--the sheer surprise that he was still alive overrode all other thought.

The earthen spears dug into the roots, and he snarled as one managed to penetrate all the way through and pierce the flesh of his right upper arm. He could feel the muscle tear from the bone--the projectile had been less than smooth.

And then, again, the rusty roar reverberated through the forest. He felt it rumbling in the roots--and that was when the realization struck.

It was the tree.

What kind of hellspawn is this?

He had no time for further incredulousness, though, for the roots squeezed harder, lifting him up the ground, and the great beast that was certainly not a tree bellowed in rage again.

Then fortune struck. A knot in the root winding around his torso offered him the briefest chance to free his left arm and take up his knife.

He only had one dose of sleeping potion. He would probably need it for the mage-- But if this didn't work, he wouldn't be around to use it on the mage.

He plunged the knife into the tree's serpentine tentacle. Another roar shook the leaves, and the root--just barely--relaxed.

He sprung from its grip and roared in pain. A bone in his right arm was broken, and his right footpaw had been crushed.

That was not the worst of it, though.

All around, the trees were moving. Their branches swayed, brandishing great, clawed grips, and a sea of writhing roots rose up out of the ground.

The mage had been enough. Now he had to fight the woods?

A menacing branch nearly snatched him from atop the sleeping root and he dove, latching the claws of his good arm into the trunk. He grimaced as the tendons strained to tearing.

Adrenaline had long run dry. Now all that drove him was the fiery instinct to live.

[Cyrus the virus]

As hard as it was to believe, initially, Luc had to come to grips with what was beginning to happen. His flurry of long, sharp talons had been rendered ineffective by the roots of a tree. The moving, reaching, wrapping roots of the jungle flora.

So much for an organic respite, he mused to himself, hunching over as the left side of his ribs seeped blood into his tunic. The monks did not disappoint as I thought they had.

As amusing as the arena’s quirk was, Luc could not take any joy in it. Rather, he needed to react. The mage had seen a Rootwalker once, in Concordia, but it hadn’t been aggressive and he ignored it. Now, he wished he’d done at least a miniscule amount of research on the creatures.

The trees were as tall as Radasanthian buildings, but mobile, they seemed like towers. Roots exploded from the ground and reached for him, wrapping around his legs, an arm, pulling him several directions. Luc’s physical strength was no match for their prying, steel grips.

In response to his situation, the Earth rose and hardened into shards, stabbing hard into the roots but doing no real good. Struggling to keep from being torn apart, Luc drew the Sword of Slykrit and bade it to ignite, becoming a beacon of bright orange light in the dense green.

He slashed away the roots holding his arm, first, then those on his legs. The roots shrunk away from the fire and retreated, but more came, clutching around his limbs and swirling toward his wrist. For trees, the fuckers were smart. The blade was what they were aiming for.

Frustration ran deep through Luc as the roots poked at his body, cutting him and seizing the sword. In an explosion of fury he roared, and the flames of the sword sprung to life, surrounding and revolving around the mage in a cylinder of thick, burning fire. The roots retreated or were disintegrated, and when the inferno died down, no new ones rose to challenge him.

The outburst cost Luc his breath and a good deal of energy, but he deemed it worth it. Panting, he took a few steps in the direction of where he last saw the wolf, burning blade in hand.

[Fenris]

He had to stay focused, had to breathe--

The hair on his neck stood up, and he dropped, just beneath the cracking swing of a lashing branch. He rolled down the rough trunk, doing his best to slow his fall, and slammed into the earth--and then he was running again, trying to get away from the grasping tentacles of the roots.

How am I supposed to fight this?

You're not, son.

- - -
The big bull deer looked up suddenly and darted away, and the whole herd chased after him.

"No!" Fihrinn whined. "We've been waiting here for hours, and now they all..."

But his father said nothing. Rather, he raised his bow, so fast he could barely see it, and let fly. The arrow sunk into the back of an aging doe, and she fell.

The elder wolf turned a smiling eye to his young son. "It doesn't matter if they all get away, Fihrinn. As long as you catch the one you need, there's dinner tonight."
- - -

He had to stay focused, had to breathe. He had to remember that none of this was real, that it was the monks, the Citadel, playing with his mind. All that mattered was the mage. If he could only take down the human, the match would end, and all this...

A lance of a root exploded from the ground and he spun, losing yet another piece of flesh from his right arm. Cursing, he leapt behind one of the suddenly outnumbered immobile trees and tried to breathe. A furtive glance around the tree trunk offered a view of the roaring fireball the mage evoked against the roots.

Earth, fire, flight...what am I supposed to use against you, mage?

But his stomach turned to ice without further thought. The bark on his back started to crawl, and he leapt away just out of reach of the clawing tree's branches.

One of the great towers began to move, then, enough of its roots pulled from the ground that it could walk about. Fihrinn darted closer, hiding in its shadow and hoping its eyes, wherever they were, couldn't see him. When he'd circled to the mage's back, he charged around the trunk, knife flashing.

Surprise was the sole weapon he had left. He hoped to whatever gods inhabited this place he didn't get skewered by mud again.

[Taskmienster]

This thread has been waiting for over a year. If you would like to complete it, or work on it further, you can PM myself or another staff member and ask for it to be moved. However, till that time, it will be resting in the Citadel Archive forum.

Thanks,
~Task