Wizards first fight (closed)

[Xos]

OOC: This is only for 016573

IC:

Xos had made it to the citadel. He was unprepared for sailing on the water, and more than once had to hug the ships railing as he leaned over its side.

He marveled at the architecture of the building and its great heighth, wondering how it was built, when a monk approached him.

"Can I help you sire?" the monk asked.

"I heard death has no sway in this place. One can fight and fight and fight and never die." Xos said.

"Our healing powers are most profecient yes, but you still die, we simply ressurect you, Xos." The monk said.

"How did you know my name?" Xos asked surprised.
"We know many secrets, but their just that, secrets. Now, were you looking for something in particular?" The monk asked.

"Well, now that you mention it." Xos said.

He stepped through the Oaken door, and looked at the Arena. He didn't think it was possible, but they did it. They exactly duplicated M.C. Escher's Relativity. There was no direction, it was pointless. He stood on a staircase hidden from sight of the entry door, and waited for his opponet. He was glad the arena was empty.

http://trese.cs.utwente.nl/taosad/SoftwareArchitecture/Images/relativity.jpg Link to M.C. Escher's Relativity picture. There is only on man carrying a bag on his back and going towards a wooden door. We shall treat that door as the entry door. Its in the center of the picture. We shall assume this arena expands beyond the borders of what Escher did.

[Breaker]

((This is... extremely irregular, but I'm curious to see where we can go with it. Hopefully my grasp of the scenario is the same as yours.))

In recent times, I had become a repeat customer to the famous Coronian Citadel. Nevertheless, its beauty and grandeur continued to amaze me. I had seen proscenium arches of pure white marble, polished mica floors in halls the size of football fields, stained glass windows as lifelike as television, and perfect displays of colored brickwork which built patterns as intricate as the Mobius strip. Today, as I stepped through a massive brass capped oaken door, I found myself in a barn, with a monk dressed in full cowboy regalia serving as my guide.

"Great." I thought to myself. "The Citadel is undergoing a modern art movement."

As I followed the monk over bales of hay and around water troughs, he explained to me what kind of room I would be fighting in, who my opponent was, and told me who was going to win the Gisela Open. I nodded and smiled, but unfortunately could not decipher his thick, fake Texan accent. At last, we came to a door made of vertical wooden slats. It had a small square window three quarters of the way up, and a rounded top which was framed by a crescent circle of bricks. I did not question how the bricks were set into the thin, knot-holed wood of the barn walls. With a final "Haodee Paardnerrr," the overenthusiastic young aesthetic monk ushered me through the door. Glad to be rid of him, I stepped through onto a fine hardwood floor.

In the same instant my feet hit that hardwood floor, I fell sideways down a horizontal flight of stairs. Cautiously, I rose to my feet and dusted myself off. The cause of my fall had not been gravity, but rather a sudden dizziness produced by the confusion my eyes were sending to my brain. As I stood with my back to the door, I was looking directly at a staircase going up, which met the top of a blank pillar. To my right of the pillar was another staircase, leading to an elevated level behind me which I could not see onto, due to the sharp angle. To my left there was a sideways inverted staircase carved into the wall. It ended abruptly in a small niche which was painted perfectly black. Looking at it was like an optical illusion.

Beyond that, to the left, there was a massive hole in the floor the same shape as the door, through which sunlight was coming. The light hurt my eyes, after the dingy interior of the barn. Beyond that were more staircases at odd angles, but I didn't have time to take them in. Despite how fascinated I was by the graphical architecture, I was in battle mode, and immediately sprinted towards the staircase. I raced up the steps two at a time, turning just short of the blank pillar, grabbing onto a banister and swinging myself onto the staircase leading to above the entry door. I had been expecting this alcove to be shadowy, but sunlight streamed in from a window next to me, which was shaped like a backwards D. Ignoring the window, I studied the stairs before me. The left half of them ran into a blank wall decorated like a large sideways deck. The right half, however, extended up into a dark, shadowed area. I began climbing the stairs, wondering if my opponent was in the dark area. If he wasn't, I planned on hiding there myself. It was an extremely strategic place to be, with all the benefits of a good stake-out position; elevation, protection, comfort, and easy camouflage. It was so dark, I could not make out anything in the interior. Climbing towards it, I began breathing deep and moving energetically, ready for a potential attack.

[Xos]

"Greetings. Marvelous place isn't it. The Subjective Gravity should be taking over momentarily. I heard the monks could make arenas be anything, and this was the most extreme test I could think of. Subjective Gravity means that gravity is towards the closest floor, or Stairwell. Have fun." Xos said. He sprinted down a stairwell accross a floor, out an entrance to the wacky outside world and in another door far far away.

Xos drummed the fingers of each hand against each other while grinning a dark devilish grin. This arena was also strategicly designed. He knew there was a good possibility those who regularly came here couldn't possibly handle this arena, due to the chaotic design.

If he could only see himself in the mirror. His grin was strongly resplendant of a dragon's fixed reptillian grin. His keen draconic senses activated. He paused and shook his head, momentarily confused, but quickly got the hang of himself. His keen hearing listened for any sign of movement from his opponet, not that that mattered, he could also see him, being accross the massive room from him.

[Breaker]

Before I had made it halfway up the staircase, a voice hailed me. I listened intently to the man's words, then watched him race out one door, and moments later, in another. The zany logic perpetrated by this strange arena had just gotten weirder. "Subjective gravity? This is going to be my most bizarre battle yet..." I squinted my eyes, trying to make out my opponent's features. He was standing on the other side of the huge hole in the floor. The sunlight streaming in through the gap blinded me slightly, and I could make out nothing other than that he was very tall and skinny. As far as I could see, he carried no weapons, and looked rather unmenacing besides. It was at this point that I began thinking it would be an easy fight.

Grasping the hardwood railing next to me, I vaulted over it and dropped like a cat to the floor below, landing in a relaxed crouch with one hand on the ground. The landing felt good; smooth, easy, and without any sense of impact in my feet or knees. As I rose and began walking towards my adversary, I had to consciously avoid becoming overconfident. My experience on Althanas told me to never assume anything; this magical world had the potential beyond the wildest dreams of earth people. Despite this, I could not see how my opponent stood a chance; He was unarmed, and did not have the muscular structure developed by those who practice Martial Arts. Besides this, he had hidden from me initially, and then distanced himself across the room's largest obstacle. Standing in the centre of the area I had initially entered, I faced my opponent and spread my hands wide, calling out a challenge;

"Well my friend, we're here to fight aren't we? Let's get on with it!"

[Xos]

"If you say so boss." Xos called out. Then he hurled a Fireball in the shape of the atom of the element Kryptonite. It was a large fireball, slightly larger than his head. It moved remarkably fast too. Xos put his hands together, and made a metal baseball bat. As he pulled out the bat, the Fireball streaked towards his opponet.

[Breaker]

"Damnit, not a mage..."
The thought lanced through my mind, matching Xos' fireball for speed. Fighting against magic wielders was exceptionally difficult for me, mostly because I simply did not understand how they wielded their powers. Also, it was nearly impossible for me to anticipate magical attacks. The fireball caught me by surprise; one moment, I was standing facing the lanky sorcerer, and the next a ball of flame surrounded by whirring sparks was speeding towards me. Not knowing how to block such an attack, or even if blocking it were possible, I jumped as fast as I could, throwing myself on a forwards diagonal to the right.

I slid on my side, facing the direction I had come from and watching the fireball's trajectory. It passed through the place where my torso had been an instant before, then crashed to the floor a metre away. There was an odd sizzling noise and the fireball was gone, leaving behind a circular burn mark as black as death. Relieved to have evaded the wizard's fire, I stood up, and then nearly threw up. Something was not right.

My slide along the floor had ended abruptly when my body came into contact with a wall that was, in fact, another sideways staircase. When I stood up, the room's strange gravitational system shifted my personal weight directionality, and I ended up standing sideways. Although I was completely baffled by this new turn of events, I did not want to let my focus slide for an instant. My opponent's display of magic had been enough to tell me he was a force to be reckoned with, and I would need a solid presence of mind to emerge from this battle victorious. I began running up the staircase, trying to ignore the voice in my head which continued to question how I was running sideways. At the end of the staircase I went into a shoulder roll, returning to the original "floor" of the arena, and thus shifting my own gravitational pull back to where it had started. Suppressing the nauseating feeling this produced, I completed the roll, and kept running straight at the wizard. Two more steps and I lunged sideways, snapping out a quick roundhouse kick. The roundhouse is a very useful kick, because it blends power and speed. The tough instep of my right foot was aimed at Xos' wrists in an attempt to quickly disarm him, bringing the fight back to my area of expertise; hand to hand combat.

[Xos]

Xos saw the kick coming and surrounded himself in an energy shield. Kick met shield and it was like kicking a brick wall. The energy shield failed, and the kick was stopped. Xos gripped his bat and swung for the bleachers, using his opponets head as the baseball.

[Breaker]

An instant from successful impact, my foot bounced off an invisible barrier. It hurt a little, but not enough to really slow me down. In training I often practiced kicks and open handed strikes against trees or solid wooden posts, toughening my body for situations like this. "Well, maybe not exactly like this." Battling this mage so far had become more of a test of my focus than my physical ability; yet again, I had to ignore my confusion over where the invisible barrier had come from, and persist in my attack. As my bruised foot landed back in an open horse stance, I saw the wizard's knuckles whiten as they tightened around the end of his bat. He inched his hands back, ready for a quick swing. In the right hands, a baseball bat can be an exceptionally dangerous weapon. Xos' hands, however, were not the right ones.

Bats make terrific battering weapons. They are blunt, heavy, and just the right length for close combat. The downside to them is that, in order to get a decent swing, you have to draw the weapon back, and follow through. I anticipated the wizard's swing perfectly, dropped into a power crouch, and felt the bat pass over my head. At the instant in which I assumed he would be going into an overextended follow through, I made my move. Using the big muscles in my quadriceps and calves, I launched my body forwards with my arms stretched wide. If all went well, my right shoulder would connect with his gut while my arms wrapped around his thighs-- a double leg takedown. Things were about to get up close and personal...

"My kind of fight."

[Xos]

And it worked, the bat flew out the big Central hole in the floor. As Xos went down he put his hands around his opponets neck and used an Arcane Blast. Being that close with contact, it was hard to imagine how his opponet could possibly escape.

If it worked, five one GP sized explosions would rip accross his neck.

If it somehow managed to fail, five one GP explosions would occur near his opponets body.

[Breaker]

My shoulder met Xos' midsection perfectly, my arms tightening around him like twin pythons going for the kill. We struck the ground in rough unison with my body on top, dominating the situation. With the taste of victory lingering over my taste buds, I reached for his throat, going for a submission stranglehold.

BangBangBangBangBang!

The sound was reminiscent of tossing a handful of cherry bombs onto pavement. Pain exploded across the back of my neck and shoulders as I felt blood oozing from freshly opened wounds. As hot red life soaked my shirt, I tried to calculate, to gauge how much blood I was losing and how fast. The wounds were not deep, and I didn't think any major veins had been opened. If they had, I would have already been unconscious. The simple truth was that I was losing blood, and I needed to end the fight, quickly. "I can still win this." I told myself, boosting up my confidence, "I'm still on top, I've got a dominant position against an untrained fighter, this should be child's play." Thrusting the agony and blood loss aside, I moved into my next attack.

Arching my back, I lifted my torso off my opponent, pulled my arms in tight, and struck twice with my left elbow. The first blow was aimed for his sternum, the second his right eye. An instant's pause, and I brought my right elbow into play, aiming a solid smash for the wizard's throat. In a kill or be killed situation, I can be a very nasty person.

[Xos]

Xos doubled over in pain as his sternum was hit. He ws out of options, if only he was stronger, or knew more spells. His magnetisim couldn't help him now.

As Elbow met throat, everything went black.

Xos awoke, somewhere. He had died, and thus lost. Fortunatly, he was brought back by the monks.

Everything felt fine. He thanked the monks and ran outside to meet his former opponet before he left. He imagined a couple of wounds would not be too serious a problem.

He caught up to his former opponet.

"Hey good match. You've really shown me where I need to improve in my fighting techniques. I hope that next time we meet in the citadel, I can prove to be a more worthy opponet, and outside the Citadel, I hope we can be friends." Xos said. He held out his hand to shake his former opponets hand.

[Breaker]

With a sickening crunch, my elbow crushed the wizard's cartilage. His body went limp, and I knew I had won. Rolling off of his prone form, I felt no satisfaction. I had barely escaped being incinerated by his strange fireball attack, and allowed myself to take a potentially mortal wound. I could still feel blood pouring out of my back and neck, slowly but surely robbing me of life. I must learn to defend against sorcerer’s, I told myself, I must... I looked up, saw a staircase above me, and suddenly I was falling upwards. It felt as though I had been sitting in a massive cup, and some unseen giant hand had suddenly inverting it. A second passed, and I thudded onto the stairs, flat on my back.

A whispered cry of pain escaped my lips, the wounds on my back pulsing with new force. I looked down, saw the wizard's body, and saw the bloodstain where I had been lying. The confusing shift in gravity combined with massive loss of blood was too much for me. Darkness crept into the corners of my eyes, and eventually consumed my being.

It could have been hours, or minutes later that I woke up, but I felt rejuvenated. The holes in my back had been replaced by smooth, unblemished skin. I rose from the bed which the monks had undoubtedly placed me in, moved to a washbasin and cleaned the sweat from my face. I stretched up towards the ceiling, feeling good. It was not just a physical sensation. That day, fighting in the Citadel had given me a new direction to take. "I need to learn to fight magic properly," I reminded myself. I had just made it out into the corridor when the wizard whom I had just battled approached me.

He spoke simply but powerfully, and held out his hand to shake. I was a little reluctant, knowing of his strange powers, but grasped his hand and gripped it anyways.
"I'm certain we will meet again, wizard. And I look forward to it, as long as I am protected by the Citadel's magic." With a friendly grin, I moved away from him, pacing the length of one of the Citadel's great corridors. I wondered when my wanderings would bring me back to his magical, mysterious place.

[AdventWings]

Might vs Magic... Who won?

Xos

Story
Continuity - 3
Setting - 2
Pacing - 3
Writing Style
Mechanics - 4
Techniques - 2
Clarity - 4
Character
Dialogue - 5
Action - 3
Persona - 3
Miscellaneous
Wild Card - 4

Final Score - 33

Comments - Your style here was rather bland and very uninteresting. Choosing to go with simplicity should be balanced well with the pacing of the story as well as the details. From the overall performance, the largest area you need to improve on is Descriptions and Details. I do not mean that you need to describe everything Xos encounters down to how many atoms it was made of - rather, a good description is one that enhances the feel of the story. the scene of the fight, for example. Reading through your posts when Xos was tackled by Joshua felt like... Xos was tackled by Joshua. Period. There was nothing else. Not even a hint of feeling - Was the mage surprised, angered or panicking? How it felt to suddenly be knocked off his feet and onto his back? Or even Joshua's thick, muscular arms literally crushing around the mage's legs like twin powerful pythons?

These are some things you should work on. Don't just say what's happening - a good story is one that the Character is also feeling it and not just either an observer or an object. It tells the reader about the character as well.

Oh, yes. There's also personality. Right now, Xos is very two-dimensional. Like a "blank" piece of paper. Not to sound cruel, but that is my impression after reading your depiction of Xos. He seemed like an interesting individual (as an off-worlder as well) but his current representation is very bland. Get to know your character a bit more (maybe "talk" to him a bit before posting?) could help a lot. :)

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016573

Story
Continuity - 5
Setting - 4
Pacing - 4
Writing Style
Mecnahics - 5
Techniques - 5
Clarity - 5
Character
Dialogue - 6
Action - 5
Persona - 5
Miscellaneous
Wild Card - 6

Final Score - 50

Comments - Your writing style and story-telling format is fairly good. Nothing stellar or outstanding, but you at least used the variable "Subjective Gravity" effects in your RP. Not enough twists and turns in the story, however, which kind of killed the suspense that shoud be prevalent in such an odd arena.

Winner - 016573!

016573 receives 500 EXP and 600 GP
Xos receives 100 EXP and 150 GP

Good luck and have fun, you two!

UPDATE: GP Rewards finalized.

[Letho]

EXP/GP added!