Rilla

Arena Chat Thread

It honestly the best variation of it. Hahaha.

Allaria Ch. 4: Rescue and Escape

Don't take away Skallagrim's wife!

Allaria Ch. 4: Rescue and Escape

Good thing we aren't going to Vulgar. Though, your powers probably wouldn't work there, nor would hunting them.

Good motivation though. A damned city of the Undead.

Arena Chat Thread

An Outlaw's Letter

An Outlaw's Letter

It seemed like ages ago, when that man first talked to me.

He was nice, y'know? Offered some choice words 'bout how good of a fighter I was. Bit rough 'round the edges, but those could be ironed out with practice, things like that. It was like his voice was lathered with honey, so very...enticing, makes a man wanna do everything he says without hesitation, y'know what I mean?

His name was The Liason, he told me briefly, and he came from a time long ahead of us. Now, back then I was still roamin' worlds, shootin' dudes for money, that sorta deal. I'd never heard of his kind or anything of the sort, but like I said, he was nice. He told me of a grand tournament, a competition of sorts to determine who was the finest and greatest among all the fighters 'n swordsmen 'n shooters 'n whatnot in the multiverse. This honour was reserved only for the best and apparently I made the cut.

He led me to a place long abandoned, and I don't mean, like, the conventional sense. I mean, this place was creepy old, ancient, eldritch in nature. Nothin' 'bout it felt right. It felt like, when God made the universes and everything, he created this place 'n simply forgot about it. Then it grew old 'n grew mold and everythin' went to crap 'n back until this guy came in and took over. He made it all nice 'n shiny, but it didn't change the fact that it was plumb strange.

He called it the Lobby, said it'd existed "since time immemorial". It...kinda looked like an old timey hotel, t' be honest. Quite homely 'n such.

Anyway, there were tons of us, like, I saw samurai, knights 'n future soldiers 'n robots 'n all sorts a' weird people. All of 'em were fighters. All of 'em had been approached by him to fight in this 'ere tournament. He addressed us when we first came in, said that the Lobby had everything we could ever want; free food, free lodgings, and hey, since this was a fighting thing 'n all, he had these special, uh, chambers built into the building. Restoration Chambers, he called 'em. Strange places that made our wounds heal, give us back our blood, our organs, things like that if we lost 'em during battle but survived and won.

And then, at the end, he told us this; the tournament was called the Way of the Warrior, and that this place ain't no place t' make friends or enemies. All of us, all a' ya'll was warriors, looking to be the last man standin' to claim the title of Warrior at the end of it all. Nothin' else stood in the way of that. No friendships, no trials, nothin'. Just fight, fight, fight, bleed 'n die to get to the top.

Aw hell, and fight we did. People fought, people bled, people died. Out of all the fellas that came along, I watched man after man, woman after woman charge into arena after arena, and fight 'n git slaughtered 'n die. I watched, dumbstruck, as men and women got their hearts torn out, heads cut off, bodies sliced clean in half from head to toe, limbs severed, blood spilled all over the place, and still it continued, fight after fight after bloody doggone fight. And I fought too, guns blazin'. I gave it everythin' I had, nearly lost my gosh dern hat a few times too.

Y'know how horrible it feels t' kill a stranger fer the first time? Now imagine that feeling, multiplied by, like, several dozen. Every stranger that I fought, I didn't even know 'em, but I had to cap 'em, crush 'em, kill 'em any way I could, cus they'd do the same t' me.

Then, when the dust had settled, it was just us two. Me, 'n 'nother guy from some future tech world, like maybe a quarter of his body was still human, rest was machine. Can't remember his name, it's eludin' me.

He bled all the same. I crushed him into a ball and tossed him aside after I'd shot his feet off. His blood was black, smelled like oil 'n cooler fluid. Awful.

At the end of it all, past the mounds of corpses, gallons of blood spilled, all the lives lost, I got that title. And y'know what? It was all fer nothin'. All I got fer my hard work was a pat on the back and the fella said "hey, y'know what, it'd be my pleasure to get you to the next tournament later this year and fight there, among the best of the best." Pfeh, "horseshoes t' that", I said. "I ain't comin' back", I said.

"Fine," he said. "Then I have no choice but to ask you to leave something here, so that future combatants may read your words to inspire themselves to fight for the coveted title." Or somethin' like that, it's been so long since.

Now, if ye're readin' this, and I bet you are, I'm long gone. I hightailed it outta there as soon as I finished this letter, went back t' roamin' the highways and byways of the cosmos, never once looked back. 'Cept my mind always did. The nightmares, y'know, memories of the people I had t' kill t' get that title. Their faces haunt me in my sleep, like hell I don't even know who all these people were in their lives but I killed 'em. I ended their lives early just fer the sake of some god damn namesake.

But take my word: this shit will change you. It is unlike any other tournament out there, so brutal and unforgiving, for the smallest of prizes at the end. I did it once, 'n now look at me.

If ye're smart, you best get outta here while y' still can, pardner. Otherwise, you might end up dead.

Or worse.

@DJAtomika

Allaria Ch. 4: Rescue and Escape

I would rather her be trained in something else, instead of jumping from spellsword to necromancer.

Since that sort of carries into warrior and mage.

Perhaps her primarily being trained as a mortician for the dead, and being taken under someone's wing to learn necromancy. That'd give you the necromancy, as well as a rather unique set of skills.

Arena Chat Thread

No and probably.

It was basically an 'off camera' tournament, basically made up for the sake of giving DJ a reason to write it. I've done it before, hence the first letter from Alphonse.

Arena Chat Thread

@MelonHead

The 'letter' previous winners write to the new crop of WOTW contestants.

Allaria Ch. 4: Rescue and Escape

Was her name Kativun Vikusus? Hahaha.

Likely some small hamlet inside the Kyut Jungle/Fores .

Arena Chat Thread

Perhaps better to keep it a 00 number, since the system doesn't allow for different numbers, yet.

Now, I suppose I need to do something with DJ's WOTW post.

You people wanna see it? Lol

Allaria Ch. 4: Rescue and Escape

So secret that, it had real world applications, so much so that it worked on me.