[hider=L'ilisht's test] 
Brovak didn't give anyone a chance for questions, or for mingling, and launched into the test immediately. [color=7ea7d8]"I don't want to be here any longer than I have to, so let's make this quick and relatively painless. You are to demonstrate your magical abilities for me, and I'm supposed to evaluate your skills and potential, after which we will begin the combat exams with one of the more unpleasant things from the Deadlands. You there, Ms. Voll, please step forwards and show me what you're made of, or try to."[/color]

After Magnhild's...demonstration...He scribbled an almost insultingly short note on his clipboard, then looked up to the group of six assembled before him. [color=7ea7d8]"Actually, on second thought, you can wait, Mr. Coridell. I like to save the most promising ones for last. You there: Little Shit, I saw what you did earlier. Since you seem overly comfortable with it... Step forwards and begin your magic demonstration."[/color]

L'ilisht narrowed his eyes at Brovak's overly-curt behavior, but he didn't pay it much mind. He was used to people being blunt with him, but he wasn't [i]particularly[/i] used to it coming from people he couldn't intimidate or otherwise hurt. Still, he walked over to the table and took a moment to peer over the items available to him.

"Luh. Ill Isht." He took a moment to go over the proper pronunciation of his name, more for the sake of himself than any others.

[color=7ea7d8]"I will call you whatever I please. Now, your demonstration."[/color]

Cocking an eyebrow, L'ilisht let out a small chuckle. "Alright." Taking another moment to find the block of iron, L'ilisht took it in his hands and slowly began channeling energy into it, his core and the arm he used to hold the block growing warmer by the second. Once he felt that he'd put enough energy into weakening the block, he squeezed his fist, attempting to crush the block like it were made of malleable plastic rather than metal. After a few moments, he dropped it onto the table.

Brovak scribbled a much longer note on the clipboard than he had for Magnhild, then shot a glance at the iron block, which snapped back into shape as though it had never been damaged in the first place.

[color=7ea7d8]"Impressive enough. You've had a lot of practice, I take it. Now, step back to the group. Mr. Barat, please perform your demonstration."[/color]

Nodding, L'ilisht stepped back as soon as he was asked. While he was put off by Brovak's decision to call him 'whatever he pleased', he was simultaneously impressed with the professor. The man knew what he was doing, that much was [i]certainly[/i] true.

[hr]

Immediately after the last student in the group finished their demonstration, Brovak half-jogged to the other side of the room, where he ripped the black cloth off of the rattling cube to reveal a huge insectoid creature thrashing about, trying desperately to get at the rack of gas masks along the back wall. Without a pause, he explained what it was, why it was dangerous, and what the students would be doing. [color=7ea7d8]"This is an Ashhopper. It's one of the most deadly creatures in the Deadlands not because it directly kills (usually), but rather because it feeds on equipment other people need to survive there. The combat exam requires that you kill every Ashhopper in the test chamber before they 'kill' you. Try not to worry too much - the gas in the chamber is not deadly (unfortunately), so even if you fail, you will still survive and be placed in a class (against my recommendations). L'ilisht, you're up first."[/color]

[color=7ea7d8]"Please put on one of the filtration hoods on the rack back there, then step into the test chamber. You may use your own equipment other than that,"[/color] the Professor said flatly as he walked over and pressed the button next to the blast door. It slid open to reveal the Deadlands-esque environment within, where one of the spongy flowers vomited a dust cloud upwards at the sudden light.

Taking his time to make sure he was fully prepared, L'ilisht checked each of his guns before nodding roughly. He only had his cylinder and the tube magazine, a total of 6 bullets and 4 slugs. Along with his sword, that should be enough to handle a few Ashhoppers. They were deadly enough, sure, but when faced head-to-head and not swarming, anybody with the slightest amount of comat experience could destroy them.

Satisfied that he was ready, L'ilisht put on one of the hoods and made his way into the testing area.

Brovak leaned in towards him as the student entered the chamber, and spoke quietly. [color=7ea7d8]"...Welcome to hell."[/color] He then slammed his fist into the button, sliding the door shut and enveloping L'ilisht in the darkness of the simulated Deadlands. A hissing noise came up as the room filled with a thin white mist, with the soft glow of the fruitlike pods hanging from parasitic vines slung downwards from the mushroom tree in the corner iluminating patches of the atmosphere. Moments after the room filled, a strange sensation struck the base of L'ilisht's brain and soul, and the room spun to life with sounds of loud buzzing and an outright swarm of young Ashhoppers dashing through the air, surveying L'ilisht and calculating their chances of success against him. Each was much smaller than the caged specimen, at only between 7 and 15 inches long, but this also meant that their wings had a much higher thrust to weight ratio.

That....was about right. Enough to be a challenge, but not enough to overwhelm him with sheer numbers off the bat. As long as he was careful enough, he'd- BANG! 

Taking a shot at one with his revolver, L'ilisht drew his sword in the other hand and grabbing his shotgun with his lower arms, slowly panning his head around to make sure he knew at least where they were. 

The Ashhoppers were swarming all around him, most outside his cone of view, and the sounds of their wings beating almost blended together. All of them save for one, which dropped out of the air before him, torn open like a rotten tomato by the bullet it had been unfortunate enough to catch. All of the creatures stopped shifting their flight patterns for a split second to look at what had happened to their fallen comrade and merely flew in a circle as they decided on a gameplan.

Taking advantage of the split-second pause they'd left, L'ilisht charged forward, swinging his sword in a wide arc and swapping his shotgun to only be held in his lower-right hand. With his lower-left hand, he reached to grab one out of the air and toss it at the others to distract them as he barreled past the group. 

The Ashhoppers would have been surprised by his charge had they been smarter than they were, but their limited intelligence gave them one advantage over humans and smarter Monsters: they thought [i]very[/i] fast. L'ilisht's charge prompted an almost immediate response from the swarm and they threw themselves out of the way, though one's wings were clipped by the claymore. Another made a grave mistake by trying to fly directly past his head and was caught, and the strength of L'ilisht's grip crunched its thin and brittle shell out of shape and broke its legs and wings. The small Ashhopper was then thrown and barreled through the air towards its brothers and knocked one out of the mist and onto the ground, somewhat thrown off balance. The grounded Ashhoppers took a few moments to regain their balance. Meanwhile, a group of three of the creatures flung themselves at his back and landed upon his clothing, scrambling around to try to get at the filter cartridge hanging in front of his chest.

His free hand already moving as he felt the creatures land on his back, L'ilisht lifted his sword and swung it up and over his head, allowing it to land inside the modified scabbard strapped to his back. A squishy, crunching feeling told him one of the insects had been unfortunate enough to be caught in the sword's path, and had splattered in the scabbard. Rather than a full scabbard, a long part of the upwards-facing side of the device was cut out, allowing for the sword to be swiftly drawn by somebody of L'ilisht's size. On a regular human, however, the blade's length would still likely cause issues with being removed from the scabbard. 

Now with two arms freed, L'ilisht swapped his revolver into his lower-left hand, relegating the smaller pair of arms to holding his gear, while the upper pair reached over his back and attempted to grab onto the monsters on his back.

The Ashhoppers on his back were fast. Very fast. He caught hold of one of them immediately as it climbed up the bottom of his hood towards his shoulders, and like the previous one, its brittle carapace buckled in his hand, spewing a jet of dark, cold goop outwards between his fingers. The other was preoccupied with avoiding being swatted and danced about between his shoulderblades, unable to make any progress without risking instant death. Two Ashhoppers far in front of him closed their wing covers and dropped to the ground, where they regrouped with their fallen brothers and scurried towards him, lifting the front ends of their bodies up and lowering their rear ends. L'ilisht would, despite the distractions, notice that the entire swarm had changed feeling. They were no longer trying to understand him and had all together taken a more... Aggressive stance.

L'ilisht grunted as he felt the Ashhopper buckle in his grip, his hand now covered in some disgusting fluid. [i]Wonderful[/i]. Not willing to get his weapons dirty, he now had to be tricky. His revolver and shotgun moved with practiced fluidity, shotgun moving upwards into his primary hand, revolver moving sideways, and then each moving once more as he grabbed his shotgun by the pump, transferring it into his lower-left hand as his upper-right right pulled the revolver up, both guns now being held properly: revolver in the top-right, shotgun in the lowers. 

Taking aim at the swarm, L'ilisht let loose with both firearms, taking two more shots with the revolver as he fired his shotgun once, a trio of projectiles flying towards the swarm.

L'ilisht's practiced aim did the swarm no favors here. While they were agile, they weren't agile enough to avoid bullets, and four were struck, sending the flying swarm scattering off into the darkness to avoid the bits of insect flesh and fluid sent flying in every direction by the shotgun slug. A buzzing sound directly above L'ilisht stopped, and an Ashhopper fell out of the air from above to land on top of the shotgun, where it crammed the end of the barrel into its gaping maw and clamped down hard. The shotgun vibrated in L'ilisht's hand, and the four Ashhoppers on the ground launched themselves straight at his chest in sequence, each leaping with the sound of a small caliber round going off. One of them collided with another in midair, leading to a bundle of two squabbling insects hurtling towards him on top of the two more practiced Hoppers.

Pumping the shotgun while his free hand reached over his back to once again deal with the Ashhopper still scrambling on his back, L'ilisht aimed his shotgun at the group of Ashhoppers jumping towards him and pulled the trigger.

The Ashhopper on his back finally met its maker as it tried to dash between his right arms and found itself caught. Meanwhile, the shotgun blast went off, tearing the Ashhopper off of its barrel in a mist of brown and a haul of chitin fragments, and a puff of dust in the ground behind the Ashhoppers leaping towards his chest. The end of the shotgun barrel was mangled by several circles of ground-away metal and had thrown off the slug, though one of the leapers lost all of its legs and bounced harmlessly off of his chest, quite dead. The two that had collided also bounced off of his chest and hit the ground, furiously swiping at eachother with all six legs, sending pieces of eyestalk and wing flying across the mossy dirt. The last found its mark, landing and taking hold of his clothing, and moved towards the hanging filter canister hanging just barely out of its reach.

Sighing in frustration at the bugs' unrelenting nature, L'ilisht swung his now-useless shotgun at the Ashhopper that landed on his chest, trusting his armor to ensure that he didn't accidentally bruise himself with the wild swing. Even knowing he wouldn't die if they got his filter, he did [i]not[/i] want to lose to bunch of monster-bugs. 

At the same time, his revolver pointed downwards and fired, while his remaining hand flung the bug he'd caught irreverently into the air, not caring much about where it went. 

The bug on his chest had managed to get to the filter by the time the shotgun's barrel came down on its back, splattering it flat against the armor plate and almost gluing it to his body. The filter was intact, though a series of tiny dents in a ring around the bottom of it had appeared and it was slightly bent out of shape. Only a breath or two were missed when it had closed its mouth over the bottom of the filter, but the fresh air came back the instant it died. The pair of squabbling bugs were oblivious to the danger they were in and both split wide open as a .357 round crashed through them and into the ground. It wasn't a square shot, but there was no way either would be getting back up from that. A stream of fluid trailed along behind the crushed bug thrown into the air, spiraling outwards and leaving a wet gleam everywhere, and one of its legs caught a hanging vine, obscuring a small amount of light and casting a dripping, broken shadow across L'ilisht. The others were now in hiding, and the buzzing sound had stopped completely.

Grunting in satisfaction, L'ilisht took a moment to stow his shotgun and revolver, again drawing his sword while he used his lower hands to inspect the filter. It looked to be another bite away from total defeat, but now that he'd put his firearms away, L'ilisht actually felt better about his chances. While his upper arms focused on offense, his lower arms could handle defense, pushing aside any of the remaining Ashhoppers that came remotely close to his chest. 

Looking around, L'ilisht frowned when he realized the remaining bugs had scattered. That was bad. He wasn't one for dealing with ambushes- he preferred a very straightforward method of combat. 

Slowly breathing for a moment, L'ilisht approached one of the fruitlike pods attached to the vines and grabbed it with his gunked-up hand, pulling lightly (for him) on the pod.

The pod didn't come off of the vine. Instead, the entire vine came off of the tree and ceiling, leaving him with a thirty foot length of plant matter, with its glowing pods very slowly losing light from the sudden lack of mushroom tree nutrients. The plants seemingly had absolutely no nutrient storage capacity, and they would be completely dark in ten minutes - more than enough time to make use of them, but still bothersome.

The falling vine brought with it exactly one Ashhopper though, which had been hiding on top of it beneath the umbrellalike cap of the mushroom tree. It tried to get out of the way and fell into a tuft of razor grass at the base of the giant fungus, where it was impaled. The light cast by the falling vine did its job even before he could use a pod as an impromptu flare, though, and a brief glint of purple on waxy brown carapace could be seen beyond a patch of the crystalline grasses on his left, and a third Ashhopper lunged towards him with the sound of a small cannon from the concrete wall on the opposite end of the room, its lampreylike mouth aimed directly at his face. This one didn't seem hungry anymore.

L'ilisht let out a sadistic chuckle as the Ashhopper fell and impaled itself on the razor grass, his short burst of confusion at the vine falling instead of the pod forgotten. 

Turning at the sound of the Ashhopper leaping towards him, L'ilisht instinctively put his gunky hand out, while his claymore moved to point at the spot he'd seen the other bug.

Instinct vs. instinct was an unfair battle at this point, with victory almost guaranteed to L'ilisht. But instinct had failed him this time, and the Ashhopper hurtling through the air found its mark when its mouth fell onto his fingers. Immediately, the mouth slammed shut with more force than would be expected, and it was immediately clear why the creatures were so delicate: Their shells were under immense strain from their musculature and could only barely keep them intact. The vibrating grinding of the rows of blunt toothlike projections in its mouth prompted severe pain, and the Ashhopper hiding behind the crystaline razor grass dashed away into the darkness and hid behind a sporeflower, which wheezed and spewed its yellowish cloud into the air once more upon its rest being disturbed.

Anger flooded through L'ilisht as the Ashhopper bit down onto his hand, and instinctively, magic flooded through his body, hardening his bones as the massive chimera [i]screamed[/i] in fury, his lower arms each moving to grip a part of the monster and tear it apart like a wad of tissue paper, his sword arm coming closer to his body in an effort to provide a barrier between himself and the other monsters. 

The Ashhopper on his hand desperately clung to his fingers as his other hands tore it to shreds, sending a spray of dark brown insectoid fluid and a stream of internal organs everywhere. It was like ripping open a ball of rubber bands. When the Ashhopper was removed, much of its mouth remained, with a ring of tight black fibers running around his fingers. From the pain, it was obvious that it had struck bone in a matter of moments. A second crack sounded out from the sporetree's cap above him, with the Ashhopper hurtling down towards the filter cartridge before he could even process its presence. It collided with the filter hose, bounced off of his chest, and embedded itself in the dirt beneath him several inches in a puff of dust, but otherwise was unharmed.

L'ilisht didn't even consciously process the Ashhopper crashing into him, his foot flashing out to crush the monster-bug before it could move again, while his lower arms carefully went about freeing his upper hand from what was left of the other Ashhopper. His sword arm, meanwhile, moved about in small circles, his blade gently twisting and turning in the air.

The tight bands of black muscle fiber proved difficult to remove quickly, instead tearing away from what remained of the mouth and leaving a loose sock of skin and chitinous tooth hanging around his mangled fingers. A few strips of red fell out of the rear of the tube, along with a tiny tickle of L'ilisht's own blood. When it was completely off, the extent of the damage was exposed: He may as well not [i]have[/i] fingers anymore, as the flesh had been almost completely torn free, with a few tiny chips in the exposed bone from the split second before he had hardened himself. It would have taken them off completely had he not reacted so quickly. Meanwhile, the motions of the sword cast soft reflections of the vine-light across the room. It wasn't enough to see, but it was enough to prompt a reaction from the final Ashhopper, which had in its haste gotten itself caught in a very awkward position. A rustling in some of the razor grass ensued as it struggled to free itself from its spiky prison, and the sporeflower just a few meters from L'ilisht coughed again.

L'ilisht drew his revolver in reaction to the rustling and shot the last bullet, turning afterwards to the sporeflower he remembered the final Ashhopper going to. The adrenaline might last a little while longer, but he wanted to be [i]done[/i] with this miserable exam already.

With his final gunshot, the trapped Ashhopper didn't take a fatal hit, but the other effects of the shot did the trick. Literal blades of grass shattered when they were struck by the round, covering the creature in shards and dust, which worked their way into the hairline gaps in its shell and the hole carved through its upper body. It stopped moving after a few moments of violent, pained thrashing. The sporeflower coughed as though the one remaining Ashhopper knew its time had come, and it jiggled slightly as the creature moved to hide directly on the other side of the bulbous head of the plant.

Slowly stowing his revolver, L'ilisht took a moment to look at the sporeflower. His eyes went down a bit, looking at the contratpion on his head. Figuring it would be enough to protect him from whatever this thing was spewing, L'ilisht swung his sword downwards, through the plant with the intent to cut both it and the Ashhopper in one fell swing.

What happened next felt like it took an eternity. The instant the blade touched the top of the sporeflower, there was a loud blast, and everything went dark. L'ilisht was still quite conscious, and was definitely upright, but the hood's lenses had been completely covered in thick dust, along with the entire rest of his body. The plant matter burned his injured fingers badly, and a hail of wetness struck him as the force of the sword strike and the plant's explosion didn't simply kill the Ashhopper, but completely vaporized it. He may as well have detonated a stun grenade in his face. But he was completely fine in the end either way.

Though the dust covering his face blocked any sight at all, he could still hear, and he heard the hiss of the ventilation fans spinning into action. A few moments later, the blast door rolled open, and the sound of clapping came to him from the exit. In a flash, the dust covering him disappeared, along with the remains of every single Ashhopper that had been strewn about the room, and the pain in what remained of his fingers disappeared. Later, he would find that his shotgun had taken no damage whatsoever.

[color=7ea7d8]"That was a hell of a show. You'll fit in with the expedition leaders. Now, get out of there, get rid of that hood, and do whatever you'd like - you've got the day off, and you'll be getting your test results tomorrow morning. Barat, please retrieve a mask and check your equipment."[/color]

Slowly transferring his grip on the sword to the blade of the weapon, so as to carry it more easily, L'ilisht walked out of the room, staring at his hand. It was fine, as if nothing had happened. "That fucking [i]hurt[/i]." That said, he walked past Brovak and left, after removing the dust-covered mask and depositing it on the table with little regard for anything.

[color=7ea7d8]"It happens in the field more often than you'd think. Good luck, and I'll see you in a few days."[/color]

L'ilisht went back to his room, after dropping off his two remaining slugs at the armory, now familiar with what the inside of his fingers looked like, and the pain that came with having half your hand degloved. Wasn't fun.

[/hider]