Printable View
This battle will end in two weeks. Best of luck to all two competitors.
By the request of both competitors, this battle will be suspended from March 3rd until March 10th, but will have a total of three weeks instead of two, including the time between the 3rd and the 10th.
The sun began to set, casting a scarlet glow over the ruins of Teria in Corone. Built along the banks of the Niema River, the ruins are the only remnants of dwarven civilization on the continent. Teria was once the capital of the dwarfs on Corone, but was destroyed nearly 1000 years ago by an invading force. Nature had taken its toll on what the dwarves had built, now all that remained of the city were vine covered stones. However, the ruins were not the spectacle of the evening. It was a new moon and in a few moments the sunset would be interrupted by swirls of emerald light dancing in the heavens.
The origin of the light is disputed. Corone's canon mentions an evil creature in the mountains that casts green light as a warning to all who enter its sacred realm. Visiting dwarfs assert the lights are made from ancient magic, meant to honor their fallen brethren. Most people dismiss both claims, deeming the lights as only a magnificent feature of nature common elsewhere in Althanas.
However, one engrossed in Althanas secrets believes all three claims could be true.
Ceidon Lorè lay with his back against a rock, watching the sky. Ceidon was visiting the ruins to prove a theory of his, while his friend, Caduceus Grimaldi, excavated a site in a nearby desert. The two had met while studying in Tel'Han with the monks of the Comb Mountains and discovered a mutual interest in Althanas’ secrets. History often told of great powers hidden within the world and both believed the powers existed, though not always as described. Encouraged by the monks, the two left the monastery to discover and protect Althanas’ secrets. Their efforts eventually gave rise to the Order of the Golden Dawn.
It was believed that the green lights of Teria hid one such secret. Ceidon had travelled around the world many times in his adventures and only saw a similar display of light in the far reaches of Salvar. However, those lights appeared daily, the lights of Teria appeared only at the new moon. To the best of his knowledge, this pattern was unique to this one place in Corone. It was shaky evidence at best, but from it Ceidon believed the lights were the “X”, or some other part of a map. He did not know what the map hid, though.
Without the moon luminating the sky, the eerie green lights finally began their dance, set off against the silhouette of the setting sun. “That’s my cue,” said Ceidon. He jumped to his feet and began scanning the area.
It was going to be a splendidly dark night.
The sun was hanging low over the horizon, desperately reaching to cover the land in its last rays of light before the darkness set it. It washed out the bright and brilliant blue that the sky normally portrayed and bathed it in shades of orange and red. Like some sick and twisted painters pallet, one who had forgotten the many other colours that reigned within the scope of the rainbow and only chose to work with these two. It even covered the grey stones of the vast ruins before her, splashing across them and staining them even as the last drops disappeared behind the mountains for the night.
Crouching along one of the many crumbling walls that littered this place, Kyosku tore her eyes away from the scenery and turned them towards what would soon be her battle ground. They snaked along the intersecting trails of stones, worn and broken by the elements and the helping hand of any man or woman who had come across this place looking for fame and fortune in a pile of sand. The man she was looking for was here somewhere, hidden within the vine covered stones, hidden within the growing shadows and the walls that once made up home and haven. He remained lost to her for now, but she would see him soon enough and she had the patience to spare. The longer he waited to show himself the more confident she became.
The night was her realm. Her blanket and her comfort zone. It was where she stalked and she killed and once within it, he would not be able to escape from her. Whether or not he even realized she was stalking him meant little to her. She was here for the tournament, had tracked him down for the tournament and would defeat him in the tournament to further the goals of The Bandit Brotherhood at all costs. She had put too much effort into it to fail and come back empty handed. She would not be able to face Molotov or Jared if she did something like that. She would not be able to face herself. So this battle was already won in her mind. She just needed to fill the spaces in the middle with something tangible. Something like blood.
From the corner of her eye, the ninja spotted an anomaly.
Lights danced through the sky. They were eerie and green and beautiful all at the same time. They played within the paling sky, dancing to a song that she could not hear. Like the beacon of so many fireflies before them and so many dazzling stars, they shivered as the coming darkness began to cascade over the world.
Then she saw movement and she tore her gaze from up above and once more towards the ruins. There she saw it, or rather him. He was a grey form that moved throughout this arena as if he were a ghost, as if he had always been there and belonged there. His body was mostly covered from her view by a bulky and grey cloak that tried to hide everything, even his weapons. But it’s impossible to hide a bow and almost as hard to hide a long sword. Other than that, she could not make much of anything out.
One melee and one long range.
No worry crossed her mind over them. She had her own weapons to counter his with.
Taking a deep breath, Kyo felt the void begin to overtake her mind. It was an endless sea of darkness where she could dump her emotions and her worries and force herself to think solely about the battle to come and the mission to come. Emotion would not cloud her judgement here and her reactions would be swift and deadly and hopefully end this battle quickly.
Moving her hands from their place along the rough and cold stone, the ninja grabbed the handful of black, loose material that was pooled around her neck and pulled it up to the bridge of her nose. It covered her face, leaving nothing but her distinct, ice blue eyes for her victim to see, though if she was good enough he wouldn’t even have a glance at them before his world came to an end. Inching towards the edge of the stone wall, Kyo dropped down to the rough dirt and grass covered ground leaving only the lightest thud to mark her landing. Straightening her body rather quickly, she dashed forward, slinking from one shadow to the next as she headed towards her victim.
((Please note we've received a one week extension on our battle in lieu of battling during the second week. Thanks.))
“Nothing…” Ceidon said after scanning the heavens for awhile. There was no pattern to the lights or anything else that would catch even the most astute archeologist’s eyes. Ceidon frowned. Perhaps the lights of Teria were nothing more than a theater for astronomers. Feeling rather dissatisfied, Ceidon jumped off of the rock. But when he landed his right leg gave way and Ceidon lost his balance, sending him face first to the ground. Ceidon raised his arms as he fell to protect his head, but still managed to bump a nearby ruin. Overcome by dizziness, Ceidon closed his eyes.
When he opened them moments later, Ceidon was greeted by a collage of stars obscuring his vision. He rubbed his eyes to make the stars disappear more quickly, but they were proving to be quite resilient. The adventurer must have bumped his head harder than he thought. After a moment of this, Ceidon turned onto his back, and then sat up. He looked forward and saw a large shadow looming on the horizon. The shadow grew larger, causing Ceidon to blink several times. By the last blink the shadow was nearly upon him. Startled, he scooted back several feet until his back smacked against the side of a ruin. When he looked again, the shadow was gone.
“Is someone there?” Ceidon asked as he slowly stood up. The stars were gone. Ceidon looked closely in all directions but did not see the shadow. “Hello?” When he received no response, Ceidon shook his head. “There’s no one here, you idiot,” he thought out loud. “You just bumped your head and are imagining things.” With time running out before the lights disappeared, Ceidon resolved to ignore his imagination and continue his search of the area. As he turned to go deeper into the ruins, though, the adventurer swore he saw something moving nearby. When he turned around to double check, it was gone. "You've lost it..."
The man was definitely not sure of foot. Merely stepping down from the rock he had been standing upon landed him on his side and his head slammed against a rock. The display made her roll her eyes and sigh almost audibly, wondering if this whole thing was going to be a waste of her time in which he just miraculously killed himself without needing any intervention from her. It was an interesting thought, but then she’d miss out on ending his life and though she didn’t particularly enjoy killing people, she didn’t dislike it either. After all, it was bred into her very soul. She was a killer through and through and nothing was ever going to change that, not even the pragmatic ways of Jared, especially when he too killed. And sometimes he killed far more viciously than she did. At least she knew where to strike to end the person’s life quickly. He was a little on the messy side.
She kept her back to the ruins of what might have been a house as she watched the man. He was attempting to get his bearings after having knocked them from his skull and now was quite possibly the perfect time to strike but the distance made her pause. Twenty feet, no more no less. She could get him with a shuriken, but they were more for distraction than real damage. Perhaps if she hit him in the neck, maybe then, but her aim was not perfect and if she missed he would know she was there. No, she couldn’t risk it, she needed to get closer.
Kyo was just about to move in closer to him when he all of a sudden he scooted back as if seeing something rather terrifying to his eyes. She paused and narrowed her eyes as she looked around, making sure she was completely hidden, which she was. Then his voice rang out throughout the area and the ninja cursed. Had he somehow been able to see her? But his eyes were not even looking in her direction. There couldn’t be another person here though...could there? It was a possibility, but she could not hear them and she had no senses with which she could detect them. No, as he continued to ramble on to himself she quickly realized it was his eyes that deceived him, set forth from the knock the side of his head had taken against the stone.
She watched and waited though, her blue eyes cutting through the darkness as he began to move once more. His steps echoed throughout the stone walls, grinding down on the loose debris and shuffling through the weeds and the grass and she used it to disguise her already quiet steps. Reaching behind her, the ninja felt along the hard sheath of her right ninja-to. The hard, metal cord wrapped around it brushed the tips of her fingers and finding the end she quickly jerked it and began to pull it from the sheath.
May you leave this world quickly.
With a burst of speed, she covered the distance between them as the cord fell free from the sheath and she wrapped both ends around her hands. With a quick and practiced motion, she tossed the thin rope around to the other side of his neck and jerked back, motioning to cross her hands behind his head and keep the hold as tight as possible.
Still somewhat shaken, Ceidon continued travelling deeper into the ruins. Ahead of him, the remnants of larger structures stood in decay—a rare sight considering dwarfs preferred staying close to the ground. Ceidon guessed that they could be guard towers, protecting whatever was hidden on the other side. But they couldn’t be anything special. Surely the hundreds of others who visited the site could have hypothesized the same thing.
Then Ceidon saw a strange light reflecting off something hidden in a bush. It too was odd, because there was nothing in the sky to reflect such a vibrant light. The sun was down, and the moon was hidden. Ceidon doubted the blue green light above could produce such a display. Curious, Ceidon walked over to the bush and kneeled down. “Retched bow,” he cried when his weapon hit the ground first and nearly lifted its hardness above his shoulder. The bow was much taller than him crouched, so this happened almost every time he sat down. Ceidon cursed again and adjusted the bow so the strings were facing away from him. That way it would slide away on contact. Feeling comfortable, he reached down and picked up the object.
It was a metal shard, but it was unlike anything the young adventurer had ever seen before. The material was incredibly light and was surprising clean. It must have been dropped here recently, or else someone would have already claimed it. Fascinated, Ceidon moved his fingers around the edges, making a small cut on his right index finger. “Ouch,” Ceidon exclaimed. He passed the shard into his other hand and put his bleeding finger into his mouth. The sharp angles of the shard made it look as though it had been shattered from something larger—a sword perhaps.
Then Ceidon stood up while still examining the object. Suddenly something caught the string of his turned bow and sent him flying forward. The harness zipped off his neck and the bow soared ten feet ahead of where he landed. He managed to hold onto the shard, but each of the fingers on his left hand was cut above the palm. Without waiting even a moment, Ceidon scurried to his feet and turned around. There, standing in his wake, was small human clad completely in black. The human had shoulder length messy hair and looked very much like…a ninja. “A ninja?” Ceidon thought out loud, “Dear God, I’m hallucinating.”
Kusa!
She wanted the curse to leave her mouth and hang in the air between the man and her, but she wouldn’t allow it. Her attack had not even been blocked or manoeuvred around. No, it had been destroyed before it had even come close to the man’s neck, stopped by her negligence. He had ducked down to pick up something in the grass and she hadn’t been able to compensate for his sudden change in position. When he stood back up his stupid bow had caused the cord to become trapped upon its surface, so instead of finding its way around his neck, all it had done was serve to give away her purpose and her presence.
Instinctively she jumped away from him, expecting an immediate counter, only to not receive one at all. Dropping the cord from her hands, Kyosku’s mind began to race over the possible ways she could remedy this situation. A surprise attack was no longer an option; he even knew exactly what she was. But, he seemed slightly off guard and because of that she could still get the drop on him if only she could act quickly enough.
Hallucinating, no, not yet, but he would be by the time she was done.
With her hands now free, the ninja reached into the hidden compartments on the underside of her armguards. Her fingers ran across the hardened leather and searched for the small slits that made up the hidden compartments. They found them, easily enough having used them so many times and quickly and produced two shuriken. The steel of the throwing stars were coated in black and allowed no light to glint off them, making them extremely hard to see and detect, especially on such a night like this and in such a location. Still, she knew he would see them coming and as such she knew there was a good chance he’d be able to block them, but she had to take the chance and hope for the best. If he could block one, maybe the other would get through and cause the desired effect she was looking for.
Keeping a light grip on the weapons, Kyo gave a powerful and quick flick from both of her wrists and sent the two projectiles sailing through the air towards the man. If they succeeded in scratching even just a small section of his skin then he would be in for a rather unpleasant surprise. They were coated in a hallucinogenic that would overpower his mind and turn his world upside down; making ninjas not the only thing he would be seeing on this night. Her attack did not finish their either. As the shuriken left her hands, she quickly reached behind her and wrapped her fingers around the worn, leather wrapped handles of her ninja-to.
She pulled and the sound of ringing metal filled the air. Tempered, steel blades emerged from behind her, their surface also coated and allowing them to blend in with the shadow. Her legs tensed, the muscles pulling and stretching until she released them by springing forth from her stationary position. If her shuriken missed, then the double slash she aimed at the man’s chest would hopefully succeed.
Before Ceidon could move, the ninja was upon him once more. The adventurer could not see the shurikens as they were withdrawn, but could tell something was thrown from the movement of his attacker’s arms. The first shuriken flew just above him. It caught Ceidon’s hat, causing it to fly off his head. Surprised, Ceidon lifted his hands to his head and turned to see where his cap had gone. It eventually slammed into a tall ruin directly behind him and then dangled in midair from the edge of the shuriken. While Ceidon was turned, the second shuriken passed under his right arm, tearing a hole in his cloak. It struck the ruin directly below his hat.
Fearing more projectiles, Ceidon jumped to the side, narrowly escaping the ninja’s advance. When he hit the ground, he tucked and completed a forward somersault before turning around to face his attacker. Though he had missed Ceidon, the ninja had cut his hat with the blade, removing a diagonal slice from the rim. “My hat!” Ceidon exclaimed. He had to do something or else he feared his assailant might never stop.
In the waking moments, Ceidon tried to think of any person who might want him dead. Nothing came to mind. Then it donged on him. His attacker…this ninja…must be an ancient warrior protecting the secret of Teria. “Wait!” Ceidon cried. “Why are you trying to kill me?” He paused for a moment, realizing the metal shard was still in his bloody hands. “Here, you can have this…special shuriken…that I found. Just please don’t kill me.” He held the metal out to the ninja with his left hand.
A moment passed then Ceidon began to rant, trying to give the ninja an excuse not to attack. “I swear I’m not here to claim the weapon. I only wanted to prove to my friend Caduceus that it exists. I’m part of a group trying to protect Althanas’ secrets. You see, we both have the same goal.” As he spoke, an odd sensation erupted in his head. For a moment, he swore that he saw three ninjas instead of one. While trying to blink away his confusion, Ceidon did not see a small drop of blood fall from his right sleeve to the ground.
She paused when he cried out to her. She didn’t know why, the ninja rarely stopped her assaults when those she was trying to kill got the nerve and the sense of mind to call out for her to stop. But she did. As he jumped away from her and his voice echoed out in the silence of this ruined city, bouncing off the stone walls and rising into the night sky, she paused. Her weapons stilled and staying in front of her should he make any kind of move, either for his sword or his bow. His hands were motionless at his sides though as his mouth continued to move. He asked questions like why, as if he didn’t know that there was a clan tournament going on, as if he didn’t think involving himself with people made merely to keep secrets would not be such a dangerous occupation. As if it wouldn’t cost him his life.
When his hand extended towards her, her fingers tightened and she had to fight the urge to remove the appendage from his body. His words were steadily getting even strange though.
He—he is offering me something in order not to kill him?
Ridiculous. He thought that she could be bought with a mere trinket, and a shuriken at that. She had plenty in her possession and could easily acquire more should the need ever arise. She was about to move in on him again, to close this small distance he had created and go right for the neck. The man seemed to have an absurd amount of luck on his side, having avoided her attacks twice more—three times technically, idiot—but luck would only last for so long before sheer skill won out in the end. And unless she allowed him to even get a grip on the weapons he carried, she was rather certain her skill would overpower his own. He could only trip on his feet so much and blindly jump away from her, avoiding the bite of her blades. Eventually, they would touch skin.
Then he ranted. His voice filling her ears and her head as it continued to bounce throughout this place. At the end of it she smirked. He seemed...confused and he was continually blinking his eyes as if trying to clear them of some kind of disturbance. Perhaps his moves had not been enough to save him from the bite of her shuriken. Kyo had thought both lost to the stones, having missed their target and merely cut into his clothes—the lucky bastard—she was now beginning to suspect that one had grazed him somewhere. The drug was beginning to take effect, slowly but surely and she had a few minutes until it wore off and he would be back in his right mind. Until then, she wanted a bit more of an elaboration on this weapon that man had been talking about. If it was something she could use to help The Brotherhood than she wanted to hear every scrap of information he had on it.
Dropping her hands to her sides, Kyosku moved towards him. Her steps were quick and purposeful as she sheathed one of her blades. Knocking his outstretched hand away from her and grabbing him by the shoulder, she shoved him against the wall. Moving her fingers with purpose, the ninja began pushing them into a pressure point at the base of his neck, though not too hard. Not yet anyway.
“Tell me more about this weapon if you want to keep breathing.” Her voice was harsh and cold as it finally found it's own place within this ruined city.
((Bunnying approved.))
((Bunnying approved))
Ceidon did not struggle when he was slammed against the ruin. Instead, he suddenly found himself fascinated with his situation. “You’re a girl!” the adventurer exclaimed. “My name is Ceidon Lore. Do you like flowers? I would love to get you some.” She did not seem amused. Ceidon gave her a puzzled look. “Oh right, the weapon…well, you see, I’m not 100% sure that it exists.” In response, the ninja pressed harder against Ceidon's neck.
“But I’m pretty sure it does." Ceidon coughed. “Look around. Do you see these pretty blue and green lights dancing in the sky?” Suddenly Ceidon reached out with his free hand and grabbed at the air. One of the lights had swooped down and was trying to tickle the ninja’s ear. “Stop that,” he cried, swiping again at the air. “Damn! It got away.” The ninja raised her eyebrow. Ceidon focused, “Where was I? Right, the lights are unique to this spot on days when the moon is hiding. I think they’re part of a map. X marks the spot, you know.”
“Do you know what this is?” Ceidon asked, losing his train of thought. He brought the metal shard in his left hand to his face. “This metal is shining even though there is no light to reflect. It looks elfish, but elves don’t come here. These are the ruins of a dwarf city, you know. Dwarfs make really strong weapons and other stuff.”
The ninja briefly glanced at the shard. “It’s Prevalida,” she said coldly, mocking the adventurer’s ignorance.
“Prevalida!” Ceidon responded. He had never seen the metal before, but knew that it absorbed and aided magic. “That means there’s magic here! I mean, it's possible that the lights themselves are magic, but magic wouldn't linger on particular days. It must have a source.” Ceidon began to wiggle to try to escape the ninja’s clutches. When she did not budge, he became erratic. “Come on! Put me down,” he begged, “the lights are about to…” Ceidon was interrupted when an owl wooed. “Ooh a butterfly,” he said.
Either this man was naturally dead in the head, or the drugs were hitting him rather hard. His words were all over the place, hitting everything and nothing. He even offered to get her flowers! What, did he think this was some kind of date? Did he think that she would not adjust the position of her fingers ever so slightly and push against the artery running through her neck and cut off the blood supply to his brain? She could not remember the last time she had run into someone as mentally retarded as him. Even Jared—the unpredictable pragmatic thief that he was—was not an idiot and would know a bad situation when he was thrown into one. This guy just seemed to either not care, or he had no freaking idiot how much shit had shovelled himself into. He didn’t even know what Prevalida looked like. How was supposed to find some ancient and long lost weapon that he didn’t even seem too sure existed.
This was a gamble.
She could kill him now and be done with this place and its glowing light and howling birds that his addled mind thought were butterflies of all things—he must have completely succumbed to the hallucinogenic—or she could search for this weapon with him. In the end, she supposed she could kill him just as easily once they found the weapon, or found nothing. He may not even be expecting it from her once she teamed up with him, after all, then she’d be his ally and his comrade. He wouldn’t be expecting the sharp pain of a knife through the soft flesh of his neck or through his ribs and into his neck. Maybe, if she felt like being generous she’d kill him quickly and with mercy, sparing the majority of the pain she knew she could inflict upon him.
Against her better judgement, against the reasoning that told her she should just kill him and be done with, Kyo began to back off. Her ice blue eyes remained locked on his brown ones, which looked as black as coal in the darkness. Her fingers slid away from the pressure point on his neck and left his body completely as her left hand sheathed her remaining blade. Reaching up, she grabbed the tight mass of black material covering the lower half of her face and jerked it down, leaving it to rest against her neck.
“Tetsoma Kyosku,” She said to him, her voice no more friendly than it had been before, “leader of The Bandit Brotherhood.” Normally respect and common courtesy demanded that she should bow when introducing herself. But this was not such a situation and would leave her momentarily unguarded in front of him.
Reaching up, the ninja swept back the uneven strands of her raven black hair out of her face and allowing him to get a proper look at her. She had no fear of him knowing her name or her face, she was still rather positive he may not make it out of these ruins alive, whether or not they found this fabled weapon.
“Here’s the deal, Lore, you’re going to find this weapon and I’m being generous enough to help. And if by the end of this little mission I like you enough, I might not kill you. But if you make one wrong move I will not hesitate to open up your throat. Now, I suggest you get to work before I change my mind.”
She took a step away from him, her presence no longer keeping him pinned against the crumbling and centuries old wall.
((Bunnying approved))
“Tetsoma Kyosku,” Ceidon repeated, sliding down the ruin to his feet. When he landed, the young adventurer became extremely light headed. “Sounds like candy…sweet delicious candy…” Ceidon trailed off when the butterfly that had wooed earlier took to the sky. After Ceidon watched it for a moment, he began to question his classification of the creature. It was very large for a butterfly and its motioned seemed far too fluid. Suddenly the thing swooped down to the ground and grabbed a mouse with its mouth, starling Ceidon. When it flew back up, the it’s brown wings shimmered.
“That’s it!” Ceidon yelled. His voice echoed through the ruins. “The answer is up there, not down here.” The adventurer pointed to the sky. “The dwarfs like down, that’s why the other archeologists went into the caverns.” Ceidon wasn’t even sure he was making sense to himself so he attempted to clarify for Kyosku. “The weapon is up because dwarfs don’t like up.” Without another word, Ceidon jumped into the air stretching his hand out as far as it could go. When he landed, he lost his balance and fell hard to the ground. A moment later he stood up, feeling incredibly dizzy. He turned to face the Kyosku’s, all three of them. “What the hell is happening to me?” he asked.
“You’ve been infected by a mild hallucinogenic,” the Kyosku’s said in chorus. “Its affects should fade in a few minutes.” The ninjas briefly looked to the sky. “I don’t see anything up there but the lights. You are imagining things,” they said coldly.
Before the ninjas finished speaking, Ceidon started jumping into the air again, reaching for some sort of invisible object. “On the contrary,” he said, somewhat coherently. “Powerful artifacts are usually buried and protected by some ancient magic or creature. The kind of stuff Prevalida would react to.” He jumped into the air once more. “But the earth often blocks the magical residue from reaching the surface. Think about it, if every artifact left a magical trail, the strongest mages on Althanas would always know where to find them,” Ceidon explained.
“You believe the source of the magic is in the sky, then?” a Kyosku asked.
Ceidon nodded, but did not directly respond to the ninja’s question. Instead, Ceidon pointed to the top of the tall ruins. “I want to go up there,” he said. Ceidon dashed over to one of the ruins he’d earlier called a guard tower. “Would you please check the other one,” he asked Kyosku. When he arrived at the ruin, Ceidon began to climb. He lost his balance several times, most likely due to the hallucinogenic, but somehow managed not to fall. The adventurer was happy to find that the ruin could support his weight at the top. For several moments, Ceidon searched for any strange markings or apparatus’ on the ruin, but found nothing. He looked over to the other tower and saw only one Kyosku. The others must have left. “Are you having any luck over there?” he yelled.
She didn’t like the idea of following his orders, even if it was more of a request than a demand placed upon her. There was something within her that rebelled against the thought of it and made her want tell him where to shove it and just how hard too. Not to mention for him to travel his own ass up the steps of the tower and find whatever it is he thought lay within. Sadly, she had to live with the fact that she had agreed to help him, which meant she couldn’t just stand around and do nothing. And since she was a killer and not an adventurer or a treasure hunter, she had to listen to him and whatever whacky bullshit he came up with in order to find this weapon supposedly hidden here.
Letting out a soft sigh, Kyosku began heading towards the tower he had indicated just as he disappeared into the other one. The moment she stepped foot inside her eyes were eclipsed into an almost complete darkness. Even her good vision was cut off and made her pause her advance. Carefully, she took a step forward and heard the crunch and grind of loose rocks and pebbles beneath her feet echo off walls that could only be a few feet from her. After a moment or two, she began to see the outline of the rough stones making up the walls and eventually the stairs.
Not wasting any time, the ninja began heading up the long flight of stairs, her nimble feet taking the crumbling and old steps two at a time. There was worry in the back of her mind that they may give way beneath her, but each of her lightly thudding steps seemed to fall on stable ground. Stones clanks and rattled as they fell from the crumbling steps and down to the solid ground now feet below her. The closer she got to the top of the tower, the more light began to filter in and allow her eyes to see the details and the crevices in the stones. It was coming from the blinking, green lights, the same eerie ones that Lore seemed so fascinated with. But still they could not cast away the darkest of shadows, making her climb tricky at best.
It didn’t take Kyo long to reach the top of the tower. The area was sparse and appeared to hold nothing within in. There was no ancient writing that would guide them and no easy to find hidden doors or whatever the hell treasure hunters looked for in places such as these.
When he called over to her, she said nothing at first. Her night sharp eyes continued to look along the floor and the walls, for something, anything that would help them in this seemingly foolhardy task. Finally, after a moment or two she spotted it, an anomaly that broke the pattern of rough stone carved and worn from centuries of weather. Moving towards it, the ninja knelt down and ran the tips of her fingers across the surface. She could feel the remainder of what had most likely been an extremely decorative and beautiful carving at one point or another, but now only the bare bones seemed to remain. From what was left, she thought it looked like a dragon, but she could not be sure.
“I...think I found something.” Her slightly accented voice lost its cold disposition as she gazed upon the carving, her fingers still softly caressing it. “It looked like the carving of a dragon in the corner where the north and west walls meet.”
As she continued to run her fingers across it, the rock shifted over the area of its heart. Pausing for a moment, she pushed harder against the stone more than surprised when it actually gave way to the pressure of her hand.
Click.
Her entire body tensed and she drew her hand away from the carving as her wide, blue eyes began to look around frantically. Then the sound of grinding stone filled her ears and she watched as part of the wall began to move away. On instinct, she jumped back her mind immediately racing and thinking it may be some kind of trap. She had heard plenty of tales about adventurers dying in the ruins of ancient cities because of old traps set to discourage thieves. But, no arrows shot forth at her. No magical charm tries to destroy her and nothing even remotely dangerous seemed to come from the strange panel in the wall.
“Umm...I touched its heart and it revealed...something.”
She had no idea what she was dealing with here, so even though she hated to do it, she waited for further instructions from Lore.
((Bunnying approved))
When Kyosku responded, Ceidon felt his heart jump. “You what?” he called out excitedly. The adventurer examined the northwest corner of his tower, but could not find a similar carving. “Wait, they could be opposites!” With a renewed excitement, he turned around only to find that the southeast corner of the tower was gone. It had been completely blasted away. “Drats,” Ceidon said, starting to pace.
There was nothing unique about his tower. It had absolutely nothing like what Kyosku had described. For a brief moment, Ceidon was jealous that she had found something before he did. It was his theory after all. “There’s nothing like that over here,” Ceidon yelled to the other tower, “What did yours reveal?”. Feeling angry, he kicked the northeast corner of the ruin, causing a large stone section to fall to the ground. When he put his foot back down, Ceidon noticed something within the exposed cross section of the railing. “What’s this?” he asked.
Taken by curiosity, Ceidon kneeled down and reached into the cross section with his hands. It felt like some sort of lever. The adventurer fiddled around for awhile, moving the parts from one side to the other. Eventually, and probably by accident, the lever clicked and Ceidon heard a grinding noise. Suddenly, a bright glow illuminated the ground below. Ceidon quickly climbed back down the ruin and ran out towards the light. He astounded by what he saw. The switches had revealed an invisible glass panel above one of the ruins. The panel was adroitly crafted. There was a picture on it that looked like a giant iguana crying on top of a dwarf.
“Tetsoma Kyosku, you really need to see this,” he yelled. Eventually he turned around, surprised to see that the ninja was already next to him. “That was quick,” Ceidon said. “Anyway, there’s a picture of an iguana crying on the panel. What do you think it means?” The adventurer looked to the ninja, but she said nothing. Ceidon began to think out loud. “Everyone knows that the dwarfs were exterminated here. Maybe this is a warning to let people know they’ve stumbled across whatever blighted the dwarfs.” He put his hand on his chin. “Or maybe it’s telling us how to open it. Wait! I think the iguana is crying blood!”
Without saying another word, or thinking for that matter, Ceidon re-opened the cut on his right finger with the Prevalida shard. Grinning, the adventurer walked over to the panel, and touched it with his injured finger. The panel reacted to the blood, but not how Ceidon expected it to. Suddenly, it became electrically charged, sending unknown volts of electricity through his body. Ceidon was thrown to the ground like a rag doll. It took him a long moment to recover, but when he sat up his headache was gone and his vision was restored.
“Err…” he said to Kyosku, “why don’t you try it?”
The man really was an idiot.
He just walked right up to the panel, sliced his finger open and touched it thinking some mysterious and wonderful display of power was going to come forth. From his blood. As if there was anything special about it. He was only human after all and this had been a city dedicated to the dwarves, she was rather certain only the blood of a dwarf was going to do anything here. A human was just going to get electrocuted and then flung back a few feet onto his scrawny little ass and look up at his newest companion and tell her to do it with all the intelligence of an ant. Yeah, as if her brain was as addled as his.
Shaking her head, Kyosku approached the ornate and beautiful painting. She looked over the lines of ‘iguana’ and the dwarf as she came to a quick and simple conclusion.
“That’s a dragon you baka, not an iguana. And it’s not crying blood, it’s bleeding. The dwarf has clearly attack the dragon, didn’t you notice the discarded weapon in the corner of the drawing?”
If she went on the same line of thinking that Lore had, then it wasn’t dwarf blood that the panel wanted, it was the blood of a dragon. The problem was, dragons did not exactly come in ready supply in this area and she was not going to go hunt one down in order to get some. Not only would it be foolhardy but she well remembered the last time she had tracked down a dragon years ago under the pleading of some very scared villagers. Oddly enough, the dragon wasn’t a dragon at all but a human named Godhand Striker who had the ability to turn into a dragon. The same ability he had given to her...
“No...it couldn’t really work, could it?” She whispered softly to herself.
But maybe, just maybe it would. She was no true dragon, but having such an ability within her technically meant she had the blood of a dragon running through her veins. Looking down at the slightly tanned skin of her hand, Kyosku reached to her belt and slipped her fingers into one of the hard, leather pouches there. Wrapping her fingers around one of her shuriken, she sliced one of her fingers open with the tip of the star and then approached the panel. Knowing that if this didn’t work she was going to get a nice shock, the ninja took a deep breath and pressed her hand against the panel.
No streams of electricity raced through her body, sending shocks of pain along her muscles and sending her flying backwards. In fact, the presence of her blood only made the panel glow a gentle blue colour that hurt her night adjusted eyes. Furrowing her brows, Kyo turned her eyes and watched as a third tower literally appeared before the two of them. It was as if it was always there and she could understand why. It appeared to be made of some kind of glass or crystal, ornate and beautifully fired and carved and it reflected everything around it as if it were a giant, diffracting mirror.
It was breathtakingly beautiful and left her momentarily speechless as she gazed upon it. Until her lips parted to whisper, “Wow... it’s beautiful...”
“I guess not,” Ceidon whispered in response to Kyosku’s insult. The adventurer said nothing else, though, as he soon became captivated by the ninja’s actions. Disregarding what she just saw happen to him, Kyosku similarly wounded her hand and boldly touched the panel. But, instead of electrocuting and throwing her back, the panel responded by revealing a magnificent third tower. Ceidon quickly got to his feet, his eye brow lifted like a giddy school-boy.
“You did it,” he exclaimed. In his excitement, Ceidon neglected to wonder exactly how she done it, but those details really didn’t matter to him at the moment anyway. All that mattered is that he was right. The lights of Teria were a map, leading to this tower and its treasures. However, deep in his mind, Ceidon hoped the two hadn’t inadvertently unleashed something terrible on Althanas with their discovery either. “Well, there’s only one way to find out,” Ceidon whispered to himself. He turned to the ninja. “Shall we?”
Ceidon slowly walked to the glass steps that lead into the tower. “One small step…” he said, but no sooner than he finished talking, the adventurer saw something odd. There were two more “guard towers” nearby. Upon further examination, it appeared that the glass tower was in the exact center of the four smaller ruins. In his adventures, Ceidon had discovered an odd correlation between old magic and symmetry. If there were four ruins, then it was likely that all four switches had to be pressed to make the glass tower appear. Had someone already discovered the secret of Teria, depressing only two of the switches on the way out? Their search had been uncharacteristically easy thus far. Was it possible that someone else had already rid the area of any traps or other dangers?
The adventurer decided not to tell Kyoshu his thoughts. If she felt that Ceidon were leading her on, he doubted she would exhibit the same mercy that she had before. Taking one step at a time, Ceidon ascended into the tower with the ninja at his heels. He was absolutely mesmerized by what he saw. In the foyer, a grand staircase wound several hundred stories to a visible apex. Everything around him was glass. From any single point he could see the ruins below him and the green lights dancing above him. Each time he took a step, the glass turned a hint of blue, revealing where to climb next.
Without speaking, Ceidon began to climb the grand staircase. At first it was rather uneventful as they were greeted by the same scenery and the same blue effect, but when he and Kyoshu were about halfway up the tower something marvelous happened. The glass walls on each side of the staircase transformed into a brilliant mural. The mural was made up of only white indentations, almost like snow had been plucked right from the sky. On the left side, the mural depicted an army of dwarfs conquering a horde of demons. In each section, one dwarf was holding a dark curved blade. On the right side, the mural depicted an army of humans conquering the dwarfs. In each section, one human was holding a glowing curved blade. It was strangely symmetrical, bringing Ceidon back to his earlier thoughts.
“How strange,” Ceidon commented. “What do you think it means?”
“My guess...” She said with a slight shrug, “is that it’s depicting two battles against opposing sides, not only in moral standing perhaps but in power as well. The humans are wielding a weapon of light and the Dwarves one of darkness, as if their very weaponry is a polar opposite. I would assume that one of the weapons shown here will be what we’re supposed to find, if it really exists and if it’s still there.” Heck, both of the weapons might actually exist within this tower. Now wouldn’t that be an interesting twist in things.
Kyo was not about to change her profession anytime soon, but she was actually enjoying this adventuring stuff. Not to mention it had been extremely easy up until this point. Where were all the traps, the monsters and the hidden riddles they had to figure out in order to claim this weapon? It appeared as if there were none, which was a worry in the back of her mind but since Lore was not mentioning it, she supposed this might be normal. After all, if her blood was enough to open the doorway to get them this far—and humans with the blood of dragons running through their veins were rare—she supposed it may just be enough to get them what they desired.
It didn’t take long to reach the top of the tower, just another minute or two of watching the intricate and beautiful battle as it continued to unfold before them. In the end, she was not sure who the victor was, though it appeared that both sides had been greatly destroyed by what had occurred and then there was no more. The ground looked more stable up here and it was not as see through as the rest of the tower. In fact, the world around her looks distorted and every step forward she took creating a shimmer and a ripple along the floor as if she were walking across a thin layer of water. The walls looked more stable here as well, as if the crystals or the glass this was made from had a slightly milky hew to it, which allowed them to become more visible to the eyes.
And the room wasn’t empty either.
Right away her eyes were drawn to the centre area where some kind of pedestal or altar lay. Here, the glass was blackened and murky but the display that seemed to have at point in time held something was now empty. Had the weapon already been claimed? The other thing she noticed was a tall, standing mirror that faced towards the altar. Just like everything else in this place it was quite ornate and seemed to have the figure of a dragon swirling along the top of it and gripping along the sides of the mirror. Its head was pointing towards the centre and it appeared to be reaching out towards it, as if attempting to grasp something in its claws.
Moving passed Lore; Kyo walked over to the altar and gently reached out, allowing her fingers to touch upon the cool glass. There was energy present here, she could feel it ripple up through her fingers and into her arm, calling out to something inside of her but she didn’t know what. Turning towards the mirror, the ninja was not surprised when she saw her reflection starring back at her, covered in her concealing ninja outfit, which left barely any skin showing at all. What did surprise her though was what her hand rested upon. Instead of the empty altar and stand there was a weapon laying within it, sheathed and ready to be plucked from its resting place by whoever had the ability to do so.
Feeling her brows rise, she looked back at the empty altar she was standing in front of and then once more at the mirror.
“Lore, go check out the mirror.”
Surprisingly, the adventurer did as she told him to and he walked over to the mirror. She watched as his eyes slid across its surface and eventually came to rest upon the same weapon she had seen.
“Can you touch it?”
He hesitated this time, perhaps remembering what had happened last time when he had blindly touched something. However, there was no shock that rent through his body as his fingers lightly caressed the cool glass of the mirror. In fact, nothing happened.
“It’s just a mirror...” he grumbled.
He stood there for a moment or two, his eyes glancing at the weapon he had come here to retrieve and yet seemed unable to grasp upon now. Then he turned and moved towards her and the altar she stood in front of. Stepping back from it, the ninja gave him full access to it and whatever treasures and secrets that lay within or upon it. He was the expert after all, even if he would not have been able to make it this far without her. Turning her back to him—even though every logical synapse within her brain told her not to—Kyosku approached the mirror. Her eyes trailed across the delicate, silver and tarnished framing that surrounding it. Watching as it moulded into scale and claw and became the leg of a dragon and then the body and finally the head. Reaching out, she ran her fingers along the cool metal and then proceeded to caress the hard and unforgiving pane of glass. Only as the tips of her fingers touched it, the glass shifted and moved as if it were water and it was trying to draw her hand.
With a sudden jerk, she pulled her hand back and looked down at it. There was no damage and nothing seemed to be missing. When she turned her ice blue eyes back to the mirror, it looked normal once more and the waves and ripples of distortion had disappeared leaving her with a perfect reflection. Confused, she turned her head to look at Lore, as her mouth opened to say something but her voce seemed to stall instead.
((Bunnying and 'post edit' approved))
Ceidon did not see Kyoshu interact with the mirror. He was too busy trying to sort out another mystery. “Hey, come look at this,” the adventurer said. “It looks like something’s been carved onto the surface of this display. It says “Hikari no Ashigaru.” Ceidon gave a puzzled looked. “What the hell is a Hikari?” he asked.
“It’s a name,” the ninja mumbled. Apparently, she hadn’t left the mirror.
“A name,” Ceidon repeated. With a frown, Ceidon glanced at the mirror. He saw himself standing next to a dark curved blade. When he touched the display, his reflection made it seem as though he was grasping the weapon. His hand became warm, but when he looked down, he was touching nothing but the metallic surface of the display. “What do you think it means?” Ceidon asked.
The ninja did not respond, so Ceidon ignored her and started pacing about the room.
A weapon was clearly visible, though Ceidon doubted that it was real. Magical mirrors tended to show a person what they wanted to see rather than what was actually being reflected. Besides, the adventurer couldn’t ignore the possibility that this Hikari no Ashigaru, if he was indeed a person, had already recovered the weapon. The evidence for prior discover was compelling: there was the carving on the display and their expedition had been noticeably simple. It was like someone had already offset any traps and solved any puzzles. Ceidon stopped pacing near the top of the staircase.
“That’s it!” Ceidon exclaimed, running down the stairs. “The murals depict two weapons,” he said to Kyoshu, though she might not have been listening. “On one side, a dark weapon is being used to vanquish demons. On the other, a light weapon is being used to exterminate the dwarfs. There are two swords here!” Ceidon ranted like a school boy.
“Light and Dark, good and evil. When the two swords were placed together they created a neutral equilibrium. The lights of Teria must have started when Hikari no Ashigaru took the one sword, leaving the other unchecked.” Ceidon stopped suddenly. “But that doesn’t explain why the lights only appear when they do,” he put his hand on his chin. "or why Hikari was unable to recover both weapons..." Something wasn't right, causing Ceidon to feel compelled to check on Kyoshu.
When he arrived back in the display room, he was shocked at what he saw. The ninja had ‘entered’ into the mirror and was slowly moving towards the blade. She appeared merely as a reflection to him. “Wait!” he called out to her. “Don’t take it!"
Ice. It felt like she was being encased in ice.
She could feel it cut through her clothes with a sharpness and precision better than any blade ever had. It pierced her skin and worked its way into her muscles and her body and made her entire feeling shiver and tense and desperately clutch at itself trying to keep warm. Each step she took inside of the mirror world seemed to take forever and there was a pull on her extremities, making it difficult to move. It felt like trying to walk upstream in a fast moving river when all she wanted to do was go with the flow and allow it to carry her wherever it wanted. But doing that would mean death in such freezing temperatures as these and Kyo had no desire to die, not yet anyway and not in such a dishonourable way.
The mirror world was exactly the same and yet different from the real world. The altar was in the same place, only opposite and the glass was not as see-through here. She knew there must be the same ruins on this side as the other, but she could barely make them out through the slightly cloudy mass of glass and what she did, did not look like ruins. In fact, it looked like the tall buildings of a still standing civilization.
With a waning determination that seemed to slowly being sapped from her very body like the warmth within it, Kyosku began moving towards the sword. The shouts of Lore she could not hear, they sounded like muffled cries, so she ignored him. When he had turned his back to her and walked over to the mural, she had ignored him and entered the mirror despite her better judgement telling her it may be the last thing she ever did. But she was not about to let the weapon slip through her grip when it was right in front of her and he did not have the ability to take it, but she did.
Finally, when she reached the altar, Kyo wrapped her shaking fingers around the black sheath of the weapon and picked it up, clutching it to her shivering body.
That wasn’t too hard.
She still had to get back to the mirror though, before she turned into a frozen ninja. Before she could even turn her head though, her ears caught the sound of grinding and cracking glass. With a jerk, she turned her head and looked at the mirror, watching as a small crack quickly began to grow larger and spread across the surface, distorting the imagine of Lore on the other side. Then another appeared and another, leaving a spider-web like trail across her and Kyo know she only had moments if even.
Pulling on the reserved of her waning strength, the ninja began heading back to the mirror as fast as she could, even as this world tugged and pulled at her and tried to keep her there. She pushed forward, her blue eyes watching as glass drew closer and cracks continued to spread. With less than a few feet between her and her only escape, Kyosku tensed her legs and jumped towards the mirror. She felt her body pass through it more than she saw it as the warmth night air began cover her ice cold skin. Then she slammed against the hard and unforgiving glass ground, eliciting a small grunt from her parted lips.
She stayed there for a moment. Catching her bearings and allowing the feeling to return to her fingers and her face. Then she softly groaned and began crawling to her feet rather slowly.
No matter how loud Ceidon yelled, Kyoshu didn’t seem to hear him. It was almost like she was in another universe. Desperate to get her attention, the adventurer threw the Prevalida shard he’d been holding at the mirror. At first it did nothing. The shard merely hit the glass and then fell harmlessly to the ground. After a moment, however, a large crack appeared in the glass where the metal had struck it. “Oh shit.” Ceidon yelled. “Get out of there!”
Ceidon could only watch in shock as the ninja struggled back through the room. Each step she took seemed move slower and slower while the crack grew larger and larger. It was going to be close. When she finally emerged with the sword in tow, Ceidon ran to her side. He had so many things to tell her that he couldn’t decide where to begin. As he helped her up, he felt a strange feeling grow in the pit of his stomach. It was like he was suddenly hungry. Eventually the hunger told him what to say first. “What the hell were you thinking? Now there is no way to put it back.”
Surprised by his tone of voice, Ceidon corrected himself. “I mean, you could have gotten yourself killed. How the hell did you get in there?” Just as he asked the question, the pieces finally fit together in his mind. The emblem in the ruin, the symbol on the panel, the mirror in the tower: each had something to do with dragons. The adventurer jumped back from the ninja. “You’re…you’re a dragon aren’t you?” Ceidon stepped back again. “Why are you here? You tried to kill me…what do you want?”
So he really was starting to clue in. For some treasure hunter he was rather slow when it came to piecing together the shattered fragments of this mystery. Not that it had been very hard from the beginning, she had long ago, figured it out while he was lying on the ground nursing his extremities which had still been pulsing with electricity. When he moved away from her as if she were some kind of diseased animal, it brought a smirk to her face. Humans were always so scared of dragons and at one point or another she may have been the same, but in Akashima and especially her tribe, they were worshipped and revered. They were not monsters that needed to be exterminated, but powerful creatures with great intelligence that lived much longer than humans. Yes, they could easily squash a mere average human and that alone made them evil for some reason, but they could also protect.
Still clutching the sheath of the sword, the ninja allowed the last few shivers to ravage her body as she finally made it to her feet. She contemplated for the sheer joy of it transforming into a dragon before Lore and seeing his reaction to it, but she quickly brushed that aside. It was not a skill she used so flippantly, nor should it be.
“I already told you, Lore.” She said to him, her voice returning to that cold and emotionless pitch it had originally carried. “There’s a tournament going on between the clans and well, let’s just say your number came up. I’m not here to protect some weapon; I’m not here to even retrieve it though I thank you for giving me another powerful piece to add to my arsenal. I’m here for your life so The Bandit Brotherhood may return to its former glory.”
It was a speech if she’d ever made one, which oddly enough she had been doing a lot of since becoming the co-leader to The Brotherhood. With a quick motion, she slipped the sheath of her newly acquired blade behind her and allowed it to slip into the resting place that her twin ninja-to currently occupied. Before she could retract her hand though, her calloused fingers found the handle of one of the blades and stayed there, never completely pulling it from its resting place.
He wasn’t far from her. Just a few paces really, a few feet, nothing more. She could cross the distance easily enough and kill him, though she did find herself hesitating for a brief second. It was stupid and amateurish of her to do. She knew she needed to strike hard and fast and though she could blame it on the lingering effects of the cold, it was because she had spent time with him now. But it wasn’t enough to stop her. The man Ceidon Lore was still just an adventurer, just another member of some other clan and she was here to remove him to the game and further her own goals. She had killed for less, she knew she had. Hired out to the highest bidder by her clan to dispense death wherever they saw fit.
So the hesitation did not last for long, a second, no more. Then her instincts pulled over the veil of her mind and her emotions retreated into the void she always placed them in when going on a mission. The transformation was quick, but evident. Her face became hard and her eyes became an emotionless lake of icy cold water.
With a quick leap, she crossed the distance between Lore and herself. Bringing her body in close to his, enough to smell the sweat of his skin. Then with a sharp jerk, she ripped the sheathed blade and brought it forth and towards the adventurer’s neck. Quick and clean and hopefully over before he would ever realize it. She always did try to be merciful to her kills.
“Liar!” Ceidon yelled. “You’re an agent of darkness sent to recover your people’s lost blade.” Everything seemed to fall into place. Dragons must have crafted the blades and the dwarfs must have stolen them. After they used them, the dwarfs hid them away because they were too powerful. The carvings, panels, and murals weren’t meant for dragons, they were warnings to others to stay away. His story didn’t make much sense, but it didn’t matter. Ceidon believed that the blades were hidden for a reason, and that’s the way they should remain.
At that moment, he drew the steel short sword, Erol, from its sheath. It felt light in his hands, almost as though it was proud to be called upon. “I’m sorry,” he said to Kyoshu. “But you’re going to have to put that back.” She responded in kind, assaulting him with her new toy. However, unlike before Ceidon was ready for the battle.
The adventure parried the ninja’s attack and brought his sword to bear. It clanked when it hit the back side of her Falchion. Kyoshu grunted in surprise as she was suddenly thrust forward, but the ninja maintained her balance like a veteran gymnast. Visibly irate, she turned on her heels and was upon him once more. This time her blade came at Ceidon’s shoulder. She was trying to cut off his fencing arm. The adventurer reacted too slowly, allowing the ninja to take a slice of his arm. Blood poured from the wound immediately, spraying onto the Falchion. Then something strange happened.
In the new few moments, Ceidon fought like he was possessed. He was able to parry most of her attacks. For the rest, he managed to swiftly block and counter attack. The adventurer was driven by something inside of him. Ceidon had an overwhelming desire to defeat her and probably would continue to attack her even if she laid down the sword. Likewise, Kyoshu fought with incredible tenacity. It was like the sword had tasted innocent blood and would not stop until its thirst was quenched.
Then the ninja tried the same neck attack she’d done before. Instead of parrying, though, Ceidon caught her attack in mid-swing. Metal grinded as each combatant pushed against one another. Against the opaque blade, Erol seemed to glow. Its bright silver penetrated the tower and lit the sky. “It’s not your sword.” Ceidon said to her. “You can’t keep it.” She couldn’t keep it because it was his. It was his discovery. He solved the secret of the lights, not her. When the adventurer looked into her dark transformed eyes he saw an evil reflection of himself staring back. What was most disturbing of all, though, was that Ceidon did mind that at all. He was enjoying this power.
He transformed right before her very eyes. Like she put on her mask of indifference and hid her emotions somewhere deep inside of her mind, he too changed himself. Only this did not seem to be something of his own doing, it all focused on the sword, as if it was the driving force that kept him going and attacking her with a vigour she did not think he possessed. It didn’t seem natural to her at all, turning the passive man into something grotesque and twisted that seemed to want nothing more than her blood on his blade. Every time she attacked him he was able to parry her blade, or block it or counter it and so far she had only managed to wound him once, but he had not been able to spill her blood, not yet and not ever.
“Give it up, Lore.” She growled between clenched teeth as she shoved his blade back and came in for a quick strike at his arm. He jumped back out of the way and then countered with his own attack meant to cleave her head from her very shoulders, a vicious and quick manoeuvre. She didn’t block it or bother trying to stop it; instead she dropped down low to the ground and allowed the blade to pass through the air where her head used to be.
Then, with a quick motion, she lashed out at his leg. Her foot connected with the side of his knee and knocked him off his one leg with a loud grunt. He knee slammed against the hard glass of the tower as he glared back at her. “Without me, you wouldn’t have been able to retrieve the blade at all. You should realize that and deal with it; you needed the blood of a dragon and could not have gotten this far without it.”
The words seemed to fall on deaf ears as his only response to it was to quickly arch his blade through the air and at her once more. She slammed her newly acquired Falchion into it, deflecting it away from her body and sending it careening through the air. With it away from his body, the adventurer was left completely open and unprotected and Kyo took advantage of it. Wrapping her other hand around the hilt of her ninja-to she quickly pulled it from its sheath and attempted to bury it within the side of Lore, right where his liver was.
Without Erol to protect him, Kyoshu’s ninja-to stuck Ceidon directly in his side. No words of distress or other quips escaped his lips as the adventurer slumped from his knees to his stomach. Despite the fact that he was near death, though, he felt stronger than ever. The hunger continued to direct his body, forcing him to continue. Thus when Ceidon went limp, his resolve remained stout. If he couldn’t have the blade, then Kyoshu couldn’t either.
While the ninja basked in her victory, Ceidon defied all odds and slowly climbed to his feet. He grabbed his side and started walking towards his displaced sword. Blood poured from his torso, turning the blue hue of the glass red as he walked. The ninja watched in awe as the adventurer refused to quit, but she also knew exactly what he was doing. In one swift motion, Kyoshu brought the Falchion across Ceidon’s face, leaving a deep cut across his chin. She followed the slash with a shoulder dip that sent him flying to the ground. “It’s over,” she said, preparing a sharp downward slash that would cut him in two.
Just before she attacked, however, the tower started shaking. The ninja fell back off of Ceidon, struggling to keep her balance. Glass started cracking all around them. First the foyer broke, causing pieces of glass to disappear into the darkness. Soon the quake made its way up the grand staircase. With blood in his eyes, the adventurer looked to the sky. The lights that had once danced about the sky had disappeared. “The tower only appears when the lights are in the sky,” he mumbled. A high pitched laugh erupted from Ceidon as the tower began to collapse. Sure he was going to die, but there was no way Kyoshu could survive the fall either. She might as well do so without the sword.
With his last bit of energy, Ceidon reached over to Erol. After a brief struggled, he managed to grab the blade with his fingertips and bring it to his arms. While the ninja attempted to keep her balance, Ceidon sat up and sent his blade flying at her arm. If Erol struck properly, the falchion would fly right back into the mirror where it came from. The ninja would die without a single thread of dignity and the secret of Teria would be safe once more. After he threw the weapon, a grin appeared on Ceidon’s face. He lay his head against the glass, it would only be a moment now before he fell to his death on the ruins below.
This was insanity. There was no way he should be able to move after such a devastating blow, let along actually attack her. The blood seeping out of his side and staining his body, his clothes and dripping down to the floor of the tower was dark, nearly black. Meaning she really had sliced through flesh and muscles and tendon and her blade had tasted his liver. He had a few more minutes until he passed out from the blood loss and then five or ten more minutes after that until his heart stopped beating and he moved on from this life and into the next. And yet somehow, somehow the man found the strength and fortitude within himself to get up off the ground and come at her again. It was unbelievable. It was incredible. It was downright foolish and pointless.
Then the worst possible thing happened; the tower began to shake. It was sudden and vicious and moved its way up her feet and into her legs, destroying her balance and sending her stumbling away from him and a final killing blow.
Clenching her jaw and grinding her teeth together, the ninja let out a low growl as she attempted to keep her balance while far below her she could hear the sound of breaking and shattering glass. It was like a clock counting down the last minutes of one’s life. With each shatter and with each crack she had less time to live and less time to formulate a plan to get the hell out of this tower. She should have just killed the man when she’d first met him instead of fucking around playing something she wasn’t. Then she saw Lore moving again, his fingers wrapping around the hilt of his weapon and bringing it close to his body.
Oh, you have got to be kidding me!
But no, he wasn’t. With a powerful jerk, he pulled his arm back and then sent the sword sailing through the air towards her. It was hard enough keeping her balance in such a circumstance but blocking, that was almost out of the question. Still, she didn’t have much of a choice. Raising the Falchion, Kyosku tried her best to actually level the blade with the trajectory of his in the few precious seconds awarded her. The shining steel of his sword slammed and cracked against the Falchion, nearly tearing the blade from her grip as her arm was flung forward and she fell to her hands and knees. As she fell she heard two distinct metallic sounds clatter against the glass. Lifting her head, she looked down at the Falchion in her hand only to see that the blade had snapped in half, leaving her with only a few inches of the dark material, while the rest had slid away from her and closer to Lore.
Narrowing her eyes, Kyo quickly sheathed the remainder of the sword behind her and then slowly climbed to her feet as she watched the walls and the floor of this section of the tower began to crumble as well. Closing her eyes, the ninja called forth the dragon that resided within her as a bright, white light completely eclipsed her body, blinding anyone who happened to be directly looking at her. After a minute, it dissipated and instead of the slender form of Kyosku, the twenty foot form of a slender and snake-like dragon remained. Bright, ice blue scales covered her newly transformed body, contrasting sharply with the blade mane of hair flowing out from the back of her head and the tip of her tail.
Letting out a low, rumbling growl, the dragon turned its back on Lore and approached the wall of the tower. With a powerful swing of its tail, it shattered the glass of the wall, watching as the broken shards slipped to the floor below or fell the more than fifty feet to the ground below. Then she leapt through the newly made doorway, twisting her much larger body and taking off to the dark skies in a wingless flight.
Ceidon sat comfortably at the Ai’Bron library in Radasanth. It had been three weeks since the incident at the tower, but the events of that night were still fresh in the adventurer’s mind. The last thing he remembered before passing out was seeing a dragon smash its tail against the glass and take flight. Ceidon awoke several days later in an infirmary. According to Caduceus, he had found Ceidon's lifeless body in the ruins. There was no sign of any glass as it disappeared with the tower. Unwilling to let his friend die, Caduceus took him to the monks of Ai’Bron at the Citadel, who revived him.
It was still hard to move around. Even though the wound from the ninja-to had fully healed, Ceidon still had casts all around his body from the fall. Apparently, the monks considered the bones less of a priority. Once they were confident that he’d live, they let the rest of his injuries heal on their own accord. Even so, Ceidon was happy to be alive and somewhat functional.
Ceidon had also received a surprise trinket from the battle. His final attack on Kyoshu, a desperate toss of his long sword, Erol, had caused the falchion to snap in two. Caduceus said that he found the opaque shard next to Ceidon’s body. The malevolent pull and the relentless hunger that Ceidon had felt in the final moments of the battle were gone, indicating that the falchion’s magic had been severed. Back in a sound mind, he was pleased that no one would be able to use the sword ever again.
The adventurer was eager to fill in some of the holes in his story and had several books in his pile at the library. In his reading, Ceidon had found that Hikari no Ashigaru was a dark elf made popular by participating in various Althanas tournaments. The dark elf did particularly well in a brawl style tournament known as the Cell, finishing third. During the battle, the crowd dubbed him “the White Warrior,” for his unusual ability to control moon light. His weapon, which most believed to be made of Prevalida (though records indicated it was Black Diamond) was called “the Falchion of Light.” Hikari no Ashigaru was also an active member of the Black Hand and Malice, former Althanas clans notorious for causing trouble. It appeared, at the very least, that the sword of light was being used for evil once more.
“He beat me to the punch,” Ceidon admitted, turning the page of the book he was reading. The adventurer still wondered how the dark elf had managed to get into the tower considering he wasn’t a dragon. That whole aspect of his journey remained a mystery. Unlike Ceidon, perhaps Hikari no Ashigaru had defeated the guardian. Before he could ponder any further something jumped out at him on the page he was reading. It turned out that the Falchion of Light had been shattered in a tournament battle and its remains were scattered throughout that area. With a grin, Ceidon put the book down and got to his feet. “I'm going to Lornius!” he exclaimed. Perhaps he'd receive his answers when the falchions, or at least parts of them, were reunited.
((Good battle, Kyo! We'd like to request to keep our individual shards of the "Falchion of Darkness." They are made of black diamond, but contain no special magic or abilities in their current forms. For more information about the development of this story, check out the "Legendary Items of Althanas" thread. The blade in our story is the twin of Arawn's weapon. Thanks))
Kyosku
======--======
~Story~
Continuity (8.5/10): I knew why Kyo was there, and what her purpose was. All throughout I began to get to know Kyo more and more, and to your credit, that added an extra point to this score. There were a couple moments in reading that I lost a bit of that, but they were fleeting at best. Well done here.
Setting (7/10): Honestly, I felt you did a good job, but that Ceidon did significantly better with this. You attempted to utilize the setting, with the mirror, which got you up to 7, but other than that you just seemed to miss opportunities to utilize it more – especially with Kyo’s ninja abilities.
Pacing (8/10): Simply put, it started out just a bit rough, which is the missing point, but once you got going. Phew, I was hooked. Well done here. Just enough action and such to keep me on my toes. LOVED IT! There were a couple of other minor spots where I felt too little happened followed by too much. Better spacing might have helped this.
~Character~
Dialogue (7.5/10): I can’t really dock you much here, because as is her nature, Kyo doesn’t talk much. However, it just seemed that at times her character escaped in her words or in her lack of them. It’s kinda hard to explain what I mean here, but feel free to ask me over PM.
Action (8/10): Good, nice flow of action. I wanted more sensible action from Kyosku, however, I think I got as much as I was going to get given the circumstances. The only thing you really got docked for here was there were a couple of minor times where I felt she would’ve normally have done something and then didn’t. Perhaps it was tied to the setting and the scenario, but I didn’t get that vibe.
Persona (8.5/10): You stuck in character and in line with your character throughout. That being said, you lost one point for the underly dramatic change when she teamed up with Ceidon. For her, that seems like it would’ve been a significantly more dramatic event for her. *shrugs* or maybe I’m just loony.
~Writing Style~
Mechanics (6.5/10): I honestly kept going how did she miss that? Or how did she miss this? There are times when proofreading or having someone else proofread goes a LONG way. I’ll point out individual things if you like, but it was only slightly less rampant on your part than your opponents.
Technique (8/10): There was a bit of foreshadowing that was kinda nice, however, for the most part, this was reasonably well done. I would’ve liked a little more of the style I’m used to reading from you, but you did well. The shimmering and painted was actually a nice touch upon rereading it.
Clarity (8/10): I could follow fairly well where things were, where they were going, and where they went. With that said, next time, you might consider connecting the dots just slightly more. Trying to figure out what happened with the mirror at first had me scratching my head literally. Very confusing.
~Wild Card~ (8/10): Backstory + Story + Mirror Scene = HECK YEAHS! Good job both of you.
Ceidon
====--====
~Story~
Continuity (9.5/10): This may sound ridiculous, but you did an amazing job with this. There was never a moment where I felt like Ceidon should not have been where he was, or ended up where he was, or anything in between. I never give 10’s, so consider yourself highly applauded for a job well done here.
Setting (8.5/10): Great job with the various interactions with the setting. From the shurikens ending up lodged in the pillars, to the glass panel and tower, this was all very overwhelmingly well done. Interaction = good score here, and you deserved this one.
Pacing (7/10): See Kyo’s score. You both were right on point most of the time, but lost big points for the awkward beginning.
~Character~
Dialogue (8/10): Much in the same way I can’t dock Kyo a whole lot here, I can’t give you much more here either. Your dialogue and body language made total sense for Ceidon, and you actually did overly well with it. I also loved his reactions and interactions with the hallucinations, that netted you that extra point over Kyo’s dialogue.
Action (6/10): Same basic stuff as Kyo, but the big thing is that I felt that at times you may have overplayed things. However, once it got to the end, I almost felt like you did exactly what should have been done and the reasoning you gave made total sense in reading. Maybe attempt to give less abruptness to certain things next time.
Persona (9/10): You also stuck right along with your character, and then when you switched into insanely driven mode, I felt the switch happen. It tore at me inside. It was awesome. You did well with this. Good job and keep it up!
~Writing Style~
Mechanics (4.5/10): Bro, bro, bro. If there is one thing I harp on more than ANYTHING in threads when I judge it’s misspelling and grammar errors. Your writing was riddled with it. HOWEVER, if there is one piece of advice I can give you, it’s use a Word Processor – Open Office is a free one you can download with a spell check and grammar check – to avoid costly errors. If this is your biggest area of weakness, you will go far on Althanas.
Technique (8/10): Oddly enough, even with the errors in your writing, I felt a lot of great technique and style was used. You had intentionally placed fragments, although, they hurt your clarity score. Overall, well done with this.
Clarity (5/10): There were times I was following right along and going “yeah, allright he’s in a groove.” Then there were times I wanted to shoot you for losing me. As such, you were docked accordingly.
~Wild Card~ (10/10): You get 10 points just for a heck of a storyline. Backstory is KING in my book. BOOYEAH!
A bit of a side note before I tally it all up. You both did really well, but I wanted more of this story. I realize it was done in an illicit time frame, but man you both had me going and hooked after that first bit of awkwardness. I just hope to see some more of Ceidon’s next adventures. He kinda reminds me of like...the Goonies. And Kyo is always just so ninja, and that is perfect for her in my book. Bravo, bravo! Could have been better, but extremely well done nonetheless! Onto the tallies!
========================-----------------------===========================
Totals--
Kyosku got 78/100.
Ceidon got 75.5/100.
Winner is Kyosku.
Kyosku gains 1250 Experience and 800 GP.
Ceidon gains 300 Experience and 250 GP.
Special Spoils—
Kyosku gains the Falchion half made of Black Diamond (no distinct properties yet) and hilt made of Dehlar metal tinted black. Kyosku also gains a small steel dragon item of her choice with the initials BB embossed into it.
Ceidon gains the other half of the Falchion made of Black Diamond (no distinct properties yet). Ceidon also gains a small steel dwarf item(ie: in the shape or silhouette of a dwarf) of his choice with the initials AA embossed into it. Ceidon ALSO gains a small shard of Prevalida that was found amidst the mess near his body that glows on it’s own.
Moderator Note: The Falchion pieces can NOT ever be sold. Period.
EXP and GP added!