Elsewhere On DOOM...
The gesture he made to execute the fatal strike was simple. Downward arc, two hands. His haptic suit bit tight against his flesh with the movement, as the competition’s armor hung over his Hollow form. It made him anxious to be without his own armaments.
Whichever fool he had just executed groaned as the, “YOU DIED,” effect played against their visor. Yolo Of Londor ignored himself, his anxiety, the way the armor weighed heavy on his shoulders and arms. He was Hollow and needed to remember that. The other world was insignificant and false. Illusory. His goal now was to slay.
Metal scraped against metal, people screamed. There was a rather dense cluster of three clans and a half dozen singletons, the clanless, fighting in close proximity. It was a small ridge with a cliff to the West. The steep drop lead directly to a magma flow. To the East was a completely vertical upward climb. Every dozen or so square feet was a cluster of fighters. Clans were more or less roughly organized and focusing on each other, while the clanless singletons were picking at whomever they wished while fighting their hardest to avoid quick counter attacks.
Footwork was important, and he kept that in mind as he moved across the uneven terrain. Carefully and with a certain amount of experience, he placed his right foot forward and left foot back. It gave away his background in fencing to those that cared to watch the subtleties. The way he swayed showed a breach of his training, though. He was searching for a roll. A gentle opportunity just large enough for him to slip through and gut the similarly dressed PvPer in front of him.
Yolo’s opportunity came when his foe, an Ork, lunged forward and swung clumsily with its katana. His gut instinct was to roll directly into it and follow up with a front dodge attack, but this wasn’t a Dark Souls zone. No immunity frames on dodge roll. When he realized where his mistake was, he was half bent over and waiting for the strike to come down onto him.
He didn’t let it. Instead, he turned his hands upwards and backpedaled. His own blade knocked the Ork’s out of the way, leaving him open. Yolo leaned back in, extending forward with force enough to knock the larger avatar back. The armor in the chest and the weakness of the blade’s stabbing ability didn’t yield him any major success in the strike.
The movements had been messy, and left him open across the back. To ensure the opportunity wasn’t capitalized on, the Hollow stepped forward again into the Ork and swung his blade down across the Ork’s main hand wrist.
The resulting stunned stare gave Yolo time to strike the deathblow across the Ork’s neck.
The simulated blood and viscera misted out into the air and speckled over Yolo’s back and armor as the Ork’s form slumped down and then vanished. Hit points remaining, zero.
Excellent.
With the minimum number of kills needed to get him through to the next round, Yolo was quite content. Carefully, he slinked towards the cliff on his right. Most others were caught up in a fight, giving him plenty of time for to begin the climb. Below him, several noticed.
They began to produce their bows from their inventories and send arrows up the ridge, while the more enterprising individuals took out the archers in melee range for the easy kills. By the time he had scaled the cliff, Yolo had acquired a half dozen arrows in his back and legs.
His health was lower than he’d prefer, but he had done his job. It was an easy enough feat now to shuffle forward and find a small alcove betwixt two rocks. Step one was the removal of the four arrows in his lower legs, and step two from his hideaway was to remove the arrow stuck below his ribs and the arrow embedded in the armoring of his back.
The disadvantage he was at was significant enough to encourage him to remain still and hidden between the two rocks he had found near the cliff. With that plan in mind, he couldn’t help but be relieved. Soon enough he’d win the competition, alone, and get back into his own gear. Perhaps invade in Blighttown once this is all over as a way of blowing off steam.
Yolo pulled his bow out of his inventory and set it on his lap so that he could set his sword just to his side. Once it was out of the immediate way, he held his bow at the ready in case he had to get a pre-emptive strike against anyone with a similar plan to hide away in a hole.
His mind drifted, however. The haptic suit was pinching at his wounds and it was beginning to ache. He needed a break. To stand and stretch and get some water. Check on his brother... The tournament was running long... Time to find a partner and do an Ornstein and Smough cossplay run of the series...
So sat he. His time for victory would come.
