The Learning Curve [Open to One]

Pages flew past her through some kind of ethereal wind. Felicity peared through the fluttering pages flying like snow in a storm. She stepped from solid ground into what felt like a sea of pages. The blue, artificial light glowed as she found herself swimming in soft, cushioning pages and scrolls. When her feet hit solid ground, Felicity managed to pull herself onto a leather bound platform. What was this place? Only a couple seconds in and this was one of the most bizarre Citadel arenas she had ever experienced.

Felicity looked up from the strange floor. Into the distance, towering bookshelves the size of the sky made up the spacious, enormous walling of the arena. Multiple platforms floated between the sea of pages, and looking up she saw that they extended towards the air above.

What kinds of platforms were they? Well, the platforms ranged from massive floating bookshelves, humongous books, ethereal letters and numbers from a diversity of written languages... Felicity could tell this expansive library had one theme to it - learning.

Learning. Life was a constant lesson.

Felicity was in the Citadel to learn. She needed to avoid using her nuclear powers, instead relying on raw skills and brain power. She checked her equipment. She lifted her arm, taking note of her maneuvering assistance device, or M.A.D., which was right below one of her arctic leather and delyn tactical gloves. Felicity's two arming swords swung at one of her sides, her katana was hanging on the other. Her trident parrying dagger was over her shoulder, her stilleto tucked underneath her gambeson. Her war bow and arrows were also slung over her back. Inside a pouch at her waist, an enchanted metal bird awaited her orders.

Felicity lowered her arm, looking down at the leather book platform she was floating on. Reaching back, Felicity pulled the bow from her back and gazed from platform to platform, on her level and above, searching for her opponent.

She was going to win this fight. Without her deadly powers.

As the sound of pages crinkling resounded around the open space, she waited.

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Akerfeldt Krigsherre stumbled though the portal like an automaton of death. One booted foot after the other pressed onto the paper oddities that comprised the arena floor, before finally the bulk of his shield and head of his axe followed him out of the thin, blue membrane. Carving a thick line in the paper behind him as he walked, the axe-blade seemed to resonate with dark energy.

The bare chested giant stopped, and stared silently at his opponent as he placed the giant shield Guddommelighet in front of him, and mounted Mork Skjold onto his left shoulder. He was opposing a girl. Or at least, he thought it was a girl. She had a chassis comparable to a bodybuilder; thick, muscular arms and legs with a forehead that looked as if it could smash concrete.

Akerfeldt mumbled to himself repeatedly, the words tumbling from numb lips. They were the words of the master he served, The Entity. He didn't know what they meant, but he clung to them with a desperate intensity. After all, they were the reason that he was here. The Entity was the reason he was here.

He had to please The Entity.

"A sacrifice?" Ackerfeldt muttered, his dark eyes occasionally jerking up from the ethereal paper floor to scan the surroundings.

The standoffish nature of The Entity proved to be a mixed blessing. It was hard to please, and this characteristic kept him thirsty and excited for a kill. The Citadel would prove most useful in that respect; an infinite battleground, with an endless supply of victims to sacrifice to the void. Now, it would leave him alone to do what he did best amongst the endless, towering bookshelves and the insanely conceptualised literature platforms.

"A sacrifice." It wasn't a question anymore. He repeated the mantra as he put a foot forward. Warmth began to radiate from the massive axe Mork Skjold as he summoned the power of Dying Light. If this girl had anything other than an evil heart, and came within ten foot of him, the Entity would try to claim her eyes for itself for just a time. Soon the whole air hung heavy and humid, and Akerfeldt began to march towards her.