Knight Sylvestre vs the Insufferable Genius Round 3
Location: the Neighborhood
Cyril spotted the traps only a couple seconds before he would have fallen for them. Directly in front of the living room's fireplace, a rug lay upon the carpet, and his acknowledgment of how strange it would be to put one on top the other kept his foot off of it. He reached out a tentative finger and prodded the rug to find it slack; there was nothing beneath it. A quick examination of the rug's corners turned up one nail per edge, keeping the mat taut and the deception intact. Having an idea of Jokaero's mindset, however, Cyril suspected it wasn't some simply pitfall. He scanned the room further, walking around as he did with all the lightness he could muster in armor and sporting a wounded foot. An odd bump existed in the middle of one of the couch cushions, and beneath the coffee table, something glinted where no glint should be. Next to a thin vertical window, there was a long yellow strip marked with tiny black lines of varying sizes, dangling from the ceiling vent to the floor. While looking for traps, the knight also scoped out potential improvised weapons. A number of fired clay vases were scattered throughout the room atop various surfaces, which might be good for a nonlethal takedown if smashed across the devious midget's head.
A plot of Cyril's own began to sprout in his mind. Without a doubt, Jokaero was waiting within the house for one of his traps to spring. When he vanguard found himself wondering why the inventor would put such faith in one of his makeshift contraptions to take him out when his concerted efforts had failed so far, he began to believe that the inventor would surely appear to deal the finishing blow personally once a trap immobilized or wounded him. The trickster's unique brand of crazy, Cyril felt, indicated that he loved the attention his kooky attitude and even kookier machines brought upon him. All of that meant one thing. After crouching in a position he felt secure, he grabbed one of the vases by the snout and lobbed it into the center of the erroneous fireplace rug.
The object sank into the cloth, a metal clang issued from beneath, and in a flash the rug was ripped into pieces as nothing less than a bear trap sprang shut, crunching halfway into the vase from both sides. A The next instant, an alarm clock attached to the bear trap went off and from beneath the coffee table a plastic bottle filled with dry ice hurtled out into the commotion. Cyril scrambled back as the bottle burst with a deafening
bang, but his attention turned to the compartment opening in the ceiling. From it, Jokaero himself dangled down, holding what looked like a miniature turbine engine with knives taped to it. “You fought well, but I'm afraid...huh?!” He froze in surprise to find a dilapidated urn in his trap rather than a stunned soldier.
His opponent was faster to recover from the confusing turn of events. Cyril's slung his shield, already abuzz, at ceiling-bound tinkerer. Panicked, Jokaero activated the turbine, and it shot like a rocket for about two feet before veering off to the side to lodge itself in the television. The shining shield, meanwhile, hit his torso dead-on. Its momentum came to a full stop only a moment later, but by that time, the damage was done. Jokaero plummeted downward, the front of his futuristic cuirass caved-in and turn by the spinning blade, and he hit the floor spread-eagled with the shield right beside him.
Cyril took a step forward, worrying that the fall had outright killed him, but as if granted a second wind the inventor rolled over and scuttled backward, pressing himself up against the TV set. With his glaive's point extended, Cyril approached. “Guess you are the stereotypical mad genius,” he drawled. “So scatterbrained and eager to have some fun that you couldn't fathom your trap failing some goon like me, huh?”
Behind his helmet, Jokaero narrowed his eyes, though he wore a toothy grin. “Don't get cocky just yet, Sir Knight. I happened to prepare a little contingency plan beforehand.” He lifted his left hand to reveal a little remote, relying on Cyril not knowing what it was.
“Enough hidden weapons!” The vanguard lunged forward with startling speed. Before Jokaero could so much as blink, the blade of his adversary's glaive came down upon his elbow joint, and his forearm parted ways with his upper arm in a spray of sparks and with the sound of rending metal. Instead of crying out, however, the inventor only snickered. The deadened finger released the remote's trigger, and the dead man's switch sent its invisible signal out in all directions.
Every vase in the room instantly burst in a swath of flame. Burning liquid splashed across the floor and furniture. The wave of heat and threat of incineration forced Cyril to turn away in order to grab his shield and protect himself, but Jokaero started to run. He dashed to the dangling yellow strip, grabbed it, and yanked. Though drowned by the fiery uproar, a click came from the vent, and the strip began to retract with the inventor holding on to it. “Hah! And they said I couldn't find a use for a souped-up measuring tape! Take that, they!” On the way up, he swung closer to the television and delivered the stuck knife-turbine a hefty kick. It freed itself from its prison of glass and started zooming around the room, a fiery blur of violence made impossible to see or hear by the quickly-spreading flame. “One final present for ya! Enjoy the barbecue, nimrod!” He reached the vent, but instead of dislodging up to disappear in the ceiling once again, he started swinging back and forth to kick at the top of the window. He was, Cyril realized, attempting to escape the inferno he'd started while leaving the vanguard trapped inside. Well, the inventor had underestimated one thing...Cyril's ingenuity!
He sprinted toward the front door through which he came. Flame licked his boosts and gnawed uncomfortably at his armor, but nothing he couldn't manage. With a wry smile, he reached for the knob, but the door did not open. His grin turned into a grimace as he tried again with more strength, but a cackle from the living room made him pause. “Hee hee hee! What kind of deathtrap would this be if I didn't lock all the doors? No getting outta this oven, blockhead!” Cyril grit his teeth as the words sank in. Had this been Jokaero's plan all along? How far ahead did this fiend plan!? Surely he couldn't have installed a lock in every door? Behind him, the flames began to roar. He turned around, instinctively putting up his shield, though he knew full well it wouldn't save him. The all-consuming light reflected in his eyes, and his breath became ragged with smoke. Immolation, suffocation...he wondered which might take him first.
-=-=-
“Hee hee! I just love show and tell.”
Jokaero's metal shoes made a light
clink as he landed on the patio. He would have rubbed his hands together in satisfaction had he still possessed both, so he settled for stretching. The gesture didn't do much good for his mechanical limbs, but what remained of his body welcomed it. A few drops of rain spattered onto the top of his helmet as he stepped away from the burning house. Idly he wondered if it would rain hard enough to put out the inferno, or if he should spend a few moments to fix his visor. Instead, his gaze landed on a little shed in the backyard, which he hadn't opened up in his initial exploration of the house. “Bet there's all sorts of things to make a new arm with!” He turned his face down as he started over to avoid getting wet, and a moment later ran smack-dab into a garden statue he hadn't seen.
“Oof!” he bounced backward a few inches and cast an annoyed glance up at the obstruction. Instead of a marble carving, he found the distinctive metallic shell of a familiar knight. “What!?” This time, he stumbled backward, and tripped on the edge of the patio to fall right on his posterior. “How're you not a pile of ashes? I trapped you with my remote latch...?”
Cyril shook his head and held up his shield. “Sawed through the door. 'Remarkable piece of engineering', right?” He watched Jokaero scramble to his feet and warily back toward the house. “Little lunatic. I wouldn't feel bad about killing you at all.”
With furtive, panicked speed, Jokaero reached for his belt with his good hand. Before he could do anything, Cyril lifted his leg and plant his foot directly in Jokaero's chest, kicking him into the house's wall. He hit with a resounding smack, ever-so-slightly stuck in. The inventor's phylactery slipped from his fingers and bounced once on the patio. “H-here! Take it, but don't kill me!”
Stooping to pick up the phylactery, Cyril muttered, “As delightful as you are, I'd rather not, but just beating you isn't enough to get your soul. I'm gonna carry you with me until I figure out how to get it.” The heart-shaped device disappeared into his hand, and the diminutive innovator gave a dark smile.
Jokaero innovator raised his hand to the side of his head, popped open a little hatch, and pressed the button.
I've won, he gloated, so sure of his own victory that he didn't notice the false phylactery rolling back toward him. The plastic explosive detonated with a sudden and shocking violence, annihilating the Insufferable Genius in an instant.
A few seconds passed before the ringing died down, and Cyril emerged from behind his shield. “Paranoia: 1. Mad genius: 0,” he said aloud in as ironic a tone as he could muster. When he lifted his faceplate, regret was etched on his face. More words came to mind, about predictability in unpredictability and nothing ever being the way it seemed, but he did not feel like saying them. There was no joy in this victory—or in any death. The deed was done, no matter who was to blame, and he needed to leave before burning debris started collapsing on him.
The Lady in White
Location: Beneath Justice Hub
@LazoThe leverage achieved by magic-propelled ice, applied with continuous force, began to push back the blockage. It was unyielding and absolute, completely obstructing the bottom of the door, but Pithy had only to wedge it open a few centimeters for the culprit to become apparent. Rather, a portion of it did, sliding down through the crack to spill across the floor. Even someone to whom deserts were completely foreign could recognize the tiny particles as sand. A drift of sand, not some object, barred the way of the Lady in White. This revelation did not come alone, however, for she could discern the sand thanks to the presence of an odd light within the chamber. A violent assortment of oranges, reds, and purples, it moved and undulated constantly like sunlight filtering through water.
She did not relent, and kept up the pressure. When her ice began to splinter and fail, her will grew it anew, and in less than two minutes she'd gotten the door open just wide enough for her to slip through. The sand shifted underfoot, but far more attention-grabbing was the source of the vivid, spasmodic aurora. In the center of the room, across a narrow chasm that writhed snakelike throughout the floor, amid a tangle of machinery, was a lustrous beacon. It resembled a bulbous orb with a black, holey outer skin constantly in flux, with a equally perforated veil of rich violet beneath, and additional layers of red, orange, and yellow between that and some kind of brilliant core. The naked eye could not ascribe to these energetic raiment a state of matter or energy; perhaps they were some sort of liquid film suspended around a floating core. Either way, the gadgetry surrounding it held it in place with plugs that siphoned its power, and cables stretched from the generator into the ceiling to branch off to every section of the Justice Hub. Could it really be that the power source of a mundane citadel so rooted in reality was really this arcane thing, so utterly unreal?
The generator itself wasn't the only point of interest. From the main room, holes torn in its walls led into dark tunnels, also floored with a bedding of sand. Through them no sound could be heard over the roar of the bizarre machine, but a smell wafted out of those gaping maws: the stench of rotting flesh.
The Fungal Knight
Location: Amusement Mile
@BananaWhen the skeleton's blade sank into the dead clown's chest, it encountered resistance, but did not stop until it was buried to the hilt. Its withdrawal caused bright red blood to gush from the new wound, soaking the entertainer's outfit and dripping down into the teacup. Not thinking twice about it, even to clean his weapon, Bonesword departed. He went on to a carnival stall, leaving the now-grisly cadaver behind.
The rain thickened, but it didn't just increase in volume. While playing around in the stall, Bonesword hadn't noticed any kind of change except, perhaps, for a slight increase in noise. After a few moments spent fiddling with his new treasure, however, a droplet snuck through the stall's awning to splatter on his forearm—not clear, but red as a rose in bloom.
A splashing sound came to him through the rain, drawing his attention to the teacup ride he'd left behind. The limbs of the clown alone could be seen, for the rest of him had been immersed in a liquid that had filled and was now overflowing the cup. Had Bonesword a nose to smell with, the sickly-sweet stench in the air would have hinted at its contents, but the eerie change was not hard to discern. Blood cascaded from the sky to run in rivulets between the boards of the pier, and to fill any open container. It dripped across the faces of the park's many active lights, bathing the entire place in deep red light. Before long, the noise of machines creaking into motion joined the rain, creating a horrific cacophony. The teacups began to spin, sloshing their contents to soak into the wood; so too did the Ferris wheel begin its steady revolution.
But shapes more ominous still began to move in the landscape of blacks and reds. The squeaks of giant rubber shoes, the bob of poofy hair, the sway of enormous pants and collars—clowns. Lots of clowns. Though at a lackadaisical pace, they seemed to move around in the confusing scene without any kind of trouble, and their odd-shaped heads moved this way and that as if searching. It didn't take a genius to realize what they might be looking for.
At that moment, Bonesword's new gadget emitted an upbeat
bip. Its 'dial' lit up, projecting light that constructed some kind of three-dimensional image as a ring around its face filled up. A few second passed before it formed the distinctive shape of a clown, and the progress ring filled completely before blinking to signify the device was ready, though what for the skeleton couldn't possibly know.
Smiley
Location: Parking Garage near Main Street
@ScreenAcneThe SMG of one of the scouts rattled out a burst of bullets, reducing the cranium of one of the zombies to chunky salsa. With the other a few feet too far away to warrant toward it, the gray woman released the trigger and lowered her weapon. Not a second later, another scout replicated the move, and the second husk dropped to the ground. In only a short moment, the potential threat had been pacified with military efficiency, and the squad thought nothing of it as it started to move ahead once again.
Then came the panic.
Every soldier froze when the sudden voice belted out from a place where no voice should be. Having passed by the very car now ostentatiously blaring its alarm to echo through the parking garage on the way in and not noticed someone hiding there was a definite problem, but it was small potatoes compared to a certain detail dropped with utmost certainty during the squad's briefing:
there are no civilians in the City of Echoes. There were only two possibilities. Either the voice belonged to an operator from another organization, or it was a siren song of an unknown entity meant to lure them into a trap. After all, in a city with actual, real-life zombies, anything was possible. Fortunately, both possibilities shared the same solution.
Two of the heavier soldiers, specifically those closest to the front, produced grenades. With practiced hands they removed the pins and hurled them at the noisy car. They exploded less than a second apart, and together the detonations ripped the vehicle to shreds. When the ringing stopped, all was quiet once again.
The squad started to move once again. Two of the scouts veered toward the wreckage of the car, scanning for the one who'd screamed. Both had their sub-machine guns at the ready, and neither intended to stay for long. They, as well as their comrades, were on alert for anything out of the ordinary as they exited the parking garage into the light rain.
Captain K. Runch
Location: Holy Ground
@ProproExactly as though he'd been impaled with an oversized syringe, the assassin known as the Bashibozuk began a fit of spasms the instant Runch inserted his phylactery's spike. Though unconscious, he kept up a pitiable moan as he flailed around, similar to one might upon being electrocuted. A few moments of the torture passed, but no longer. All of a sudden Hajji's body grew limp, every muscle slack, and a sigh escaped from his lips. In a rather alarming manner, steam rose from his skin, but more pertinent to the victor's long-term goal were the lights appearing on his own phylactery. A soft, unceremonious beep sounded out as one cyan light appeared at the very base of the container's side, closest to the prong. A second later, another appeared just above it in navy blue. The two remained for a moment, then dimmed.
Never far from the action, Oren's drone appeared from its high vantage point. With a flicker of light its projected screen came to life, and displayed upon it, the bespectacled young man wore a predictably jovial expression. “Nicely done! And 'arr'-en'tcha the clever one? Figured it out all on your own, without even asking me for help. You're the first to do so, in fact! Pat yourself on the back, if your wounds will let you. Here, maybe I have just the trick. As promised: booty for kicking booty.” One after another, the crisp note of clasps coming undone -surely euphoria to the ears of a pilferer of chests- heralded the downfall of the drone's item box. It hit the church floor, completely intact, a few feet away from Captain Bartholomew K. Runch.
You got:
20.
JournalKnowledge is powerProvides a readout of the behavior and abilities of a nearby organism when opened, generating a new permanent page each time
Oren's face turned into one of powerful longing. “Ooh! I've been wondering if that would turn up. Before the College made me an announcer, I was on a team with Kiriagi and Manfred tasked with exploring the city to try and catalog all the different beasties. I'm sure the eggheads removed all the filled pages, but you'll have plenty of time to 'creature' own record now that you've beaten round 1. Speaking of, your next opponent isn't all that far away from here—a nice place called Oldtown, chatting it up with someone a little like me. Find him if ya like, but you'd be better off finding a place to bunker down for the night. Gonna be a rainy one. Anything else before I buzz off, me hearty?”
Convinced that any more sleep was beyond him by the puzzling dream, Captain Teller trekked through the pouring rain, walking in the center of the Village's large, circular street. The entire island upon which this region was constructed, judging by the slight but steady rise in the street's elevation, was somewhat dome-shaped. The incline caused water to pour downhill, lapping against the soldier's armored feet as it passed, but not strong enough to challenge his footing. Random pieces of garbage weren't quite so fortunate, and it stood to reason that garbage cans and parked cars might share their fate and be swept back down toward the bridge as well, but so long as Teller's tired eyes remained alert there would be no problem.
The Village, compared to the rest of urban Downtown, did not shine so brightly in the dead of night. It remained moody, tinged by darkness, though the golden glow of streetlights remained. In one of them, around three hundred feet ahead, two figures could be seen. Their general shape and posture marked them as women, and while one was hooded, the other held an umbrella, and beneath it in the lamp's light her splendid waist-length red hair stood out prominently. The insignia of the College lay open both their coats, of which Teller had seen the like during his own induction. Of his presence the college personnel were not ignorant; both turned to face him as he approached. Guðrún regarded him with a rather standoffish glare, but within the hood of her companion, the pretty face Amelia Rosenvalt stayed neutral. Guðrún spoke first, shouting through the downpour.
“Blackjack! Shouldn't you be inside resting after your fight?”
Amerlia threw her a look, then turned back to Teller. “She doesn't mean anything by that. Good evening, Captain. We've been assigned with an investigation in the Village. As you might have noticed with Slow Dancers', this place is a hotspot for spirits. We were told that we could allow you to help if you're willing.” She crossed her arms, waiting for a reply.
The ascent, despite Tyrant's doggedness, did not come easy. Never meant to be used as a ladder by a being as enormous and heavy as he, it presented him with new challenges at every turn. Sometimes he found himself confronted by sheer surfaces; other times, dubious handholds forced him to think twice about where he laid his mitts. From up above, the music became spliced with intermittent booming noises reminiscent of cannon-fire, though too small and too frequent, and as the ogre grew closer, the air became thicker. Dust choked the skylight, which hadn't been powerful to begin with, and before long Tyrant was climbing almost blind. All he could do, however, was to go up or down, and there was nothing for him in the echoed cavern below.
Little by little, another light approached him from above. Through the murk of dust, it shone with the familiar glow of captured flame—a lantern of the Inquisitional College. In the midst of examining this new development, however, a handhold grasped by the ogre suddenly, and with a simple but heart-stopping
crack, broke off. Gravity did not hesitate to take its toll, and Tyrant began to fall.
He plummeted all of two feet before, impossibly, his back hit the ground. No matter how quickly he put two and two together, the transition remained terribly jarring, but once a couple moments slid by the wind began to sweep away dust and ambiguity both. When the haze faded, Tyrant's surroundings became apparent: a great, classical-style amphitheater, with enough space to seat thousands of spectators but only three individuals present.
The first, and closest to Tyrant, was Dr. Linas Richards, half of the two-person team who'd fetched the ogre from his own world to participate in the Crucible. For the second time that night, the good doctor had brought Tyrant somewhere new. Compared to the second onlooker, however, Richards warranted barely attention at all. Across from the warlord who stood upon the amphitheater's main stage, an imposing individual sat halfway up the rows, garbed in holy robes of red and white, sporting an intricate mask, and wreathed in light. A crimson greatsword lay across his knees, too heavy for an ordinary man to use in any more capacity than lifting it up and dropping it, but this seven-foot cleric was no ordinary man. Dante, veteran of the battlefield, warrior of light, and hero of the Empire, stood taller than any foe he'd ever faced—but would he measure up to the Gaintbreaker Wallcrusher Mountaineater Drakedestroyer Gatecrasher Hoardmaster All-Maw, the Large and Strong?
“Well, well, well!”
A flying machine, unknown to Tyrant as of yet, descended into the airspace between the two dangerous combatants. It hovered far enough from either that its controller didn't bother projecting his holoscreen, but instead amped up the microphone. “'Halo' again, Dante! Hey now, Sah-grog-brah-ogg. I don't believe we've had the pleasure! I'm Oren, announcer for the Crucible. Welcome to the party! For a little while there, I thought we lost you. Neheheh!”
His tone turned melancholy for a moment. “Actually, the whole warping process was interfered with by an outsider. Ole Richards here messed up the transport because of 'Garbage', leaving ya stuck beneath No-man's Land. Anything cool down there? Ah, ya have to tell me later. Anywho, what a match we have here!” Excitement coursed through his vocal cords once again, and the drone's view shifted between Tyrant and Dante. “Two super-strong competitors, ready to duke it out. With fighters like you two, this could all be 'ogre' in a second, or last until the tournament's end. Who knows? Well, know that whoever wings gets a special prize, courtesy of moi. Ready, gentlemen? ...Go!” Oren's cry resounded through the amphitheater, the harbinger of a much-anticipated bout.
The smith kept his eye on Motley as the vampire mulled over the information, then having found it satisfactory, nodded. While Souta might have hoped for the two men to part ways so that he might continue his self-therapy unbothered, his new acquaintance seemed less eager to part, and made sure to set straight his stance on taking lives. Glad to hear it as he was, Souta did not trust the man, and so kept his wits about him. He did not, however, expect Motley to turn around and question the use of souls is weapon-making. With a rather close to patronizing expression, the smith took his turn to clear up a little misunderstanding in a drawling tone.
“Well sir, this blade isn't soulforged, though it does have a little magic in it. If you wanna count killing demons and monsters against me or the company's collectors, go right ahead, but we don't kill humans. Not even bad ones.” He turned to the axehead he'd been tempering before switching his attention to the sword. After grabbing a pre-prepared metal rod from where it leaned against the wall of his little workshop, he lined it up next to the axehead on the cooling rack to get a feel for where they should be welded together, and what adjustments would need to be made to both pieces first. “Ain't our job,” he added matter-of-factly. With a delicate touch, he maneuvered the two pieces around. “Regalia, my company, is an arms manufacturer for Gilgamesh Co., a bunch of determined idealists who want humanity to have equal authority with Heaven and Hell. We make 'em weapons, they go out and kill demons, then bring back their souls to get better weapons. That's all there is to it.”
He glanced back at Motley. “Since I got to...this place, uh, business hasn't been booming of course. No clue where I am, or how I got here, or anything. Just installed myself in this medieval-looking town and got to work. Helps me think. If you want something made, I can trade for whatever, but there ain't any special materials around here.”
Keen senses might detect the approach of soft footfalls, coming from the direction by which Motley himself arrived.
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