Fantasy RPG Forum - Standing Trials

"Sure yeh ain't get nuffin' better t'do?"

Head shake.

"All the nobs where they should be? None of 'em wanderin'?"

Nod.

"When's last time y'saw Belly, or-"

"Stop stallin', wanker!"

Kasoria rolled his eyes and looked around Mikiros (which took some shuffling all by itself, given the man's size). Raand was selflessly relegating himself to the role of spectator this time around. Seated on a bench, snacking on an apple, and enjoying both the show and his own shit-arsed contributions to it. Kasoria gave him a scowl but part of him welcomed the distraction. Battle was full of them, after all. More than that, a mage's biggest hindrance was their own mind's capacity to wander, fracturing their concentration, diluting their ether.

Let the tosser run his mouth. Adds to the challenge.

tap-tap

The sound of the heater shield's pointed base smacking into the ground got Kasoria's attention back to Miki. He saw a quirked eyebrow, an impatient grimace, just tinged with accusation... and he sighed, nodding. Yes, he did let the bastard get to him. Wasn't that always the way with friends? The giant raised his longsword and then gestured to Kasoria's empty hands. The smaller man shook his head firmly.

"Nah. Gonna see what I can do wiv'out it, ken?

"oo gn av un wun iz real"

As always, it took a few trills to run that through the filter. But that didn't mean it didn't, nor that he couldn't see the wisdom. All of The Band did, for they'd all known Mikiros long enough to become used to the mangled, vowel-chewing, word-chopping Common he spoke when simple gestures weren't enough. He raised a good point, too. He rarely allowed himself to be without some kind of weapon. Most times he used his magics, it was in a fight... and then, there was usually a blade in his hand, too.

Then he remembered the last time he'd sparred. Raand's falchion coming for him, faster and faster. The focus he'd needed, the whiff of desperation crystalizing his concentration out of sheer necessity. No weapon in his hands save his hands, and the ether he wielded. Yet he'd managed to survive the bout.

The more you advance, the tougher the tests need to be. You taught like that; stand by it now.

"Nah. Not this time." He holds up a hand as h sees Mikiros' face start to contort, frown of concern already crushing his eyes. "Din' worry 'bout it, mate. I handled Raand-"

"It was sparring, arsehole."

"-an' I know youse can control dat sticker a' yours well as he can his. So..."

He walked over to the table next to the bench, already summoning his Spark. It was eager as he was, flitting through his nerves and bones and pulsing twice the speed of his heart. He reached out with his right hand, fingers splayed, and called the power in him. Eyes open, but mind empty. Forcing out Raand's loud chewing, Mikiros' heavy breathing, the sounds of a full and turgid city beyond the courtyard walls, and he-

Reach.

Closed an invisible hand around the simple wooden sand timer, the same one he'd used before. Raand and Mikiros both popped their eyebrows in surprise when they saw their leader turn it over without coming within three feet of it. But as his hand moved, so did the glass. And once the sand started flowing, he turned, raised his fists and let the meager emerald haze around him flare into blazing life.

"On yeh come, wee man."

Mikiros was the friendliest of their number. That wasn't just by their standards, which were appropriately muddled. For all his decades of criminality and brutality in battle, Miki didn't have the malice in him the rest of them called upon. He fought more for his fellows than he did his purse; all the way back to his first graceless street brawls, barely into his adolescent years and bigger than some men. Among their circles, he was known as a soft touch. Too nice, too happy, always smiling... so unlike the exemplars of the Etzori street daemons, like Kasoria himself.

They thought that would make him easier to handle in a fight. That his soft heart would slow him down, just long enough for them to slay the lumbering fool.

Kasoria always smiled when he heard that. He'd never worked out if Mikiros had planned that from the beginning, or simply adopted it as his own when he heard the thepry. It didn't matter. The results mattered. A whole trail of cleaved, gutted, battered, rendered results, stretching back into the previous century.

Smart. Patient. And fucking fast-

-sweeping in hard with a swing from shield, seeking to knock Kasoria clean off his feet. The little man jumps back, Spark already hissing in his limbs, seeking to Propel-

No. Not yet.

Much like Raand had been, Miki wouldn't take it easy on him. Mainly because he knew the tough little shit, and understood giving him any opening to carve them up was as good as handing him the fucking blade themselves. So he didn't pause, stomping on, shield back on guard, longsword thrust towards him-

Still at half-speed. Fast enough to be challenging, slow enough to be controlled, but if he lost that focus for even a moment...

Kasoria smiled. He'd made the right decision.

Reach.

He waited until the sword was a couple of feet from him before he slapped out with his right hand-

-Miki's face was a picture of surprise as some phantom, some blast of wind without sound or genesis smacked his sword off it's path-

-and as he looked back at Kasoria the little man spun and hammered a spinning kick into empty air-

BANG

-but grunted as he felt like the full weight of the blow slammed into his shield, stalling his relentless advance for precious moments. He shook his head once and with the gesture vanished his surprise. Kasoria always had tricks; if you paused to marvel at every one, you'd never get anything fucking done. So he came on again, mouth pressed into a hard line, slashing from the side with his sword-

Shit!

-Kasoria falling the feint a second too late, swiveling on his hips to block it only for the blow to stop and the shield to move in his peripheral-

-mighty fucking boot coming for him and he was too close to dodge-

Propel!

-threw out his hands instead and his Spark exploded from him, yanking him backwards without a jump or a shuffle as if a rope around his waist had yanked him-

"Shite!"

He landed... awkwardly. Tottering and teetering a crucial few steps as his body adjusted to being knocked back so fast without his muscles doing jack about it. But it didn't take him long to adapt, and by then he was a good six feet away from the giant, hands raised once again. The big man glanced at the sandglass, and Kasoria flicked a look alongside him. Barely a thimble's worth at the base... and sweat was already beading on Kasoria's brow.

"nee a brek?"

The Raggedy Man smirked and rolled his shoulders.

"Wastin' time, ain't we?"

Miki huffed like a bull and charged.

The Big Man had surprised him a couple of times; he wouldn't allow it again. Mikiros didn't let reflection or second-guessing creep into his head as he came on again. That was for when his sword was sheathed and his shield was upon his back. In a brawl, a wandering mind could kill you fast as a blade or an arrow. Kasoria had told him that. All he allowed himself to focus on was his enemy. What he could do, how he could defend against him... and how best to kill him right bloody back.

He didn't plod or stomp anymore; he charged. He closed the space in a blink, moving fast for a man his size. He thrust out with the sword like a spear, driving Kasoria back, using the momentum to cover another couple of feet, yanking back the sword as his shield lashed out-

-pointed tip that could smash a skull like a clay jug in his hands aiming for Kasoria's chest-

There it was again. The smaller man's hands snapped out and a blast of force hit him as his shield started to move. Like wind but stronger, fast, more localized... a storm with an intellect behind it. A hurricane bottled and lent to magic, blasted out at him, fast enough to make his eyes squint and-

Would have worked with a smaller man, Kas. Not me.

With a bellow he forced through the arcane attack, knees bent and head down, as if fighting against a cyclone. Redoubling his efforts he heaved the shield forward and Kasoria jumped and rolled to the side, coming up on his feet-

-finding Miki already there, merciless, relentless, sheen appearing on his face now as he pushed his body just as he dogged Kasoria's heels. His spells took time, that much he'd noticed. He'd not advanced nearly as far in this new magic as he had the other two, and the instant conjuring he could manage with them is absent. That gives Miki a window. A mere trill or two, but that's all he needs.

So he keeps on the pressure, forcing the smaller man to evade, dodge, roll. But he misses that calm, analyzing look in Kasoria's eye as he presses on his attacks. His mind is a tunnel now, focused solely on the physical. He doesn't notice the little man becoming more deliberate in his movements; dodging and rolling further away, sooner than before, even though it costs him in aching limbs and streams of sweat.

He doesn't know he's being maneuvered, not until Kasoria backward rolls twice and then comes up with both hands outstretched and... nothing happens.

Miki commits the greatest sin of a warrior: overconfidence. Not even cowardice is so maligned, or destructive. He pauses for a moment, shoulders shaking like boulders in mirth, and shakes his head.

"nuin lef, eh?"

He smiles. Kasoria smiles. He stirs a foot and-

"Shit."

-hears it, behind him. Not the voice, the scrape of wood on stone-

-turns and sees the other table sitting next to the bench hovering inches above the ground-

-Kasoria yanks his arms inwards with a grunt and it flies towards him-

"sit!

He spins on his heel and throws up his shield just in time. The table slams into it and... Fates, it's heaver than it should be. Another trick this little sod has been working on. Wood splinters and flies apart, furniture projectile exploding around the dirt but he's already swinging, cursing himself, hating that he was played, knowing that as he turns he'll see-

-Kasoria charging his way, and he grunts again-

-propelling himself up, up, further than even his lean, fit legs could manage. More bloody magic, sending him leaping six feet in the air, his swinging sword missing him completely and he still isn't finished-

-leg snapping out in mid-air, invisible but very tangible and painful front kick catching Miki under the chin. Teak tough as he is, he knows even as he staggers that Kasoria pulled it back. He could have shattered his jaw if he wanted, but instead he settles for driving him back, vision a mess of black stars and exploding suns.

He listens. It's all he has for a few trills. Hears the little man land back on the dirt and lashes out blindly-

-catching nothing, feeling-

A force with no substance behind it. A kick to his thigh that lands with no sense of rubber or fabric. Only the kinetic impact, robbing him of it, numbing the limb, making his go down to one knee-

-straight into the left hook that comes in with no knuckles, no skin, no rattling bone against bone. Just power. Magical and etheral and made real.

And it still doesn't knock him down.

Kasoria doesn't finish him off. That's how he knows they're still sparring. He lets him be until his vison clears, sword and shield still held tight and close, expecting another onslaught. But there's nothing. He blinks unsteadily and sees Kasoria standing there, arms at his sides... and knows the sight of the sand glass zipping through the air to slap into his hand isn't some product of a battered brain pan. The little man smiles slightly. The sand has run out.

"nes time... me uh im... av oo togevvuh"

Raand chuckles at that idea. Maybe then they'll land a hit on the little sod. Kasoria just smiles wider and jerks a thumb towards the gateway.

"C'mon. Les' scarper a'fore the locals show up an' complain about the table."