The Law of the Battle [PM to join]

[Alicia]

Battle theme!

[OOC: I'll be taking up control of the knight just for this post to get everything started; whoever wishes to pick him up again afterwards to murderize Lilly and I is more than welcome to do so, though!]

~~o~~

"Hah! You talk too much, pup." The knight's lance moved to the side, still perpendicular to the floor as it swatted away Alicia's thrust, his movement precise; the sound of metal clashing against metal rang across the room briefly. "All bark and no bite! A shame this is all your pitiful churches have to offer." The Etrurian grit her teeth in frustration as she tried to bring her own weapon back in line with her opponent; she pulled the shaft across her front, the tip slashing from side to side towards the man's head.

"Weak."

His voice rang out as their weapons clashed together once more; Alicia felt her heart leap up in fear as his spear bounced away. The man's face remained impassive, his mouth moving into the slightest semblance of a contemptuous smirk as he turned his wrist, using the momentum from the clash to bring the tip to bear at the front in a single, practiced motion. She saw it edge closer to her, aimed straight at her throat; she desperately tried to bring up her shield, but it was far too late. He was already inside her guard; the shield wouldn't help her now. Her arm tried to pull her own lance back into position to parry with the shaft, but she knew it was a futile attempt. Had Saint Elimine decreed this was her last day?

The knight's brow furrowed as he pulled the spear back, raising his shield to cover himself from Lilliane's fireball; light flared up around the point of impact as the projectile exploded, illuminating his expression for one terrible second as he grit his teeth in determination, enduring the heat that crept past his armor and padding. Alicia stepped back, readying herself once more as she opened her eyes, her own lance dipping underneath his before thrusting forwards hastily. The attack was poorly aimed, and glanced off to the side, sliding over his armor's plates easily; the young knight's eyes narrowed in frustration. Why couldn't she find an opening? She was the best in her class! This was...absurd! To be defeated by a Lycian knight, a bandit, at that?

She struggled to lock away her anger and mounting fear as she batted away her opponent's counterattack with her shield, stepping back. Why? Was this the result of her opening up earlier? Had it impaired her skills, as the priests had said? It made no sense for a knight of inferior faith to defeat her. She redoubled her efforts, her attacks growing desperate as she wove her lance into a flurry of blows, jabbing with swift, jerky movements towards the other knight's body, strategy abandoned in favor of sheer stubbornness. The tip of her weapon no longer sought out the weaknesses in his armor, striking blindly; the corners of the man's mouth curved upwards slightly as his lance rose in an upwards swing, racing towards her face. Alicia flinched in surprise, drawing backwards as she parried the blow with her spear, but the blow held no power, and was easily deflected. A feint? Her eyes widened as the red-armored knight stepped into her guard, his shield slamming against her body and knocking her down. "To think that you'd surround yourself with the likes of her. You must be desperate, Lilly." He stepped forward, his movements surprisingly agile as he approached the Lycian mage swiftly.

~~o~~

The shaman pursed her lips under her cowl as she dodged to the side to avoid the pegasus, a silent gasp escaping her as the knight's spear struck a glancing blow, the flat of the tip slamming against her left forearm. Pain was a nuisance. Airborne enemies were a nuisance, too; she should incapacitate the detestable rider's mount first, and strike down the woman afterwards. She raised her hands, the left one drawing an odd, mysterious pattern in the air as the right one remained motionless, ring and middle fingers extended. Her brow furrowed in concentration as she blocked out the pain, the voices of her companions, the shouting of the vermin that had interrupted them.

The torches on the walls seemed to flicker briefly, growing dimmer as the woman wove her spell. Light seemed to shy away from her position, casting long shadows around her figure, a slight, chill breeze weaving its way throughout the room as her left hand grew still. A faint sound, similar to a whispering voice, echoed briefly as silence engulfed her; she gave herself in to the spell's energies, the cold void that spread through both her body and mind. The conduit was open. The shadows around her sprung forward like crossbow bolts, flying towards the winged horse swiftly.

[Erica Winters]

((OoC: I think I’ll leave controlling the shaman to Alicia for now. I’d rather not control my own enemy if that’s ok, considering we all seem to be controlling eachother’s opponents. Given that the fighter and knight have already been given an action that still needs to be responded to, I’ll just control for this post. I hope this is ok with everyone~))

Battle Theme!

A loud echo, hoof slam to stone as Kiki came to a powerful slam of a landing. The steed seemed unphased as the mysterious robed girl leapt to the side and avoided it with ease. However, she was unprepared for Erica’s horiztonal arc swing of her slim lance, landing a direct hit with the flat tip. A refreshed smile planted itself on Erica’s delicate lips as she felt the impact of steel to flesh. It was not a manical somewhat eerily satisfactory look, but simply one of reassurance. She landed a hit! She could do this! It would be a lie to say, Erica was not overcome with nerve. She could barely control herself yet alone the increased pounding of her heart. This was still apart of her first fighting experience, never before this job had Erica fought another person. This was also her first time not knowing the choice of weapon, and she quite frankly didn’t want to find out either. This fight particularly, she felt like her life was in danger, as was everyone elses. She had to fight, and she had to win!

As the Slim lance impacted the flesh, Erica pulled back bother her arms, retracting the Lance and holding it in a balanced position ready to attack or defend. The sound of her allies in danger, it worried her, it distracted her. She couldn’t help but turn an eye as Alicia fell to the floor, and the knight cruelly mocked the two of them! “No!” A thought darted through her head as she worried for the safety of her allies before immediately considering the safety of herself. Without hesitation she returned her attention to the fight, but it was too late! “Dammit! Pay attention, I have to stay on the offense!” The shamaness had already begun an attack, a strange pattern was traced by her left arm. Erica’s eyes were wide, the shamaness was in no way targeting Erica. “Press on! Keep Fighting!” Thought Erica to herself. She couldn’t afford to give this shamaness an opening.

Erica, already within lance distance from her previous attack prepared her lance. Within the instance between preperation and attack, Erica could experience the Shaman’s attack almost in slow motion. The room darkened, an eerie atmosophere of forboding spreading faster than a forest fire far beyond control. All light seemed to flicker and dimmer, light shying away from the shamaness, and a strange chill breeze blew bye. Yet, Erica continued her attack, for the sake of her companion’s safety she had to act fast, and thrusting wit hthe power of her left arm she tried to bat the shamaness out of position with the pole of the lance.

“Kiki! Dodge!”

The steed had immediately turned to the side as it attempted to trot out of the way, but the crossbow bolts of dark energy came to an impact, jabbing into the flank of the mid-escape pegasus. It could have been much more severe for the creature but Kiki held out continuing its trot as it circled towards Erica, bursting out its wings to take a low level flight once again. The pegasus hovered above the duo in circles. A dark energy seemed to return itself to the shamaness, baffling Erica. For a moment her eyes were wide in disbelief. This repulsive, dark, grotesque magic. She had only seen it once before, with that strange child, Elder Magic. It frightened her, its feeling, its capabilities, its potential and its presence in general. Erica was fighting a shaman? She wasted no more time in following up with her attack. After the attempt to bat the shaman with her pole shaft she pressed forward with her right arm reversing the direction of the swing targeting the shaman with a follow up horizontal blade sweep.

[Aeros]

Now cue MY music.

:. :: .:

Bandits.

Aeros had felt unsure after first springing into action; it had been so long since he'd fought human beings, or, really, anything that could be described as a person, that he had forgotten what a battle felt like. How much power could he use? How far should he go?

...Should he be afraid of killing them?

But that one, horrible word...if the others wanted to question any of these three, they would need to finish their fights before he finished his, because these were monsters just as much as the undead he had fought some time ago. The fact that they may have had thoughts and feelings, that they might have families, that they believed this to be their only living...none of that crossed Aeros' mind without a quick dismissal. Especially not the last, because he had seen what that 'living' came from, and it made him anything but happy. The manakete started to draw every ounce of power he could as he barreled toward the fighter, fully prepared to transform if he needed to do so to destroy every brigand in this fortress...and in that moment of absolute focus, he missed the attack coming his way.

The strike smashed straight into his arm, sending him spinning away with a grunt until he flared out his wings to slow himself. Even then, it took a moment to regain his balance; once he did, he glared daggers at his opponent, on guard and silently berating himself. They were scum, but they weren't stupid scum this time. Anyone else probably would have been badly hurt by that hit...fortunately, he wasn't anyone else.

And he didn't plan to be caught by surprise again. He would not be caught by surprise again, because being caught by surprise meant someone else was controlling when and how he won.

Actually watching his opponent this time, Aeros began to creep around the ax wielder, drawing slowly closer. It was an obvious tactic, but one that only gave his opponent two options: wait for the manakete to get within range, or close the gap himself. There couldn't possibly be room for any other ideas, not with several other fights going on around the room.

It required fighting an intense instinct to simply lunge with every bit of ferocity, but he had his opponent's decision to look forward to...and that would be enough to wait for.

For a moment.

[Linius]

Here's a real man's battle theme!

Linius ushered the people out of the doors as quickly as he could, trying to keep a head count of them. "-Twelve, thirteen, fourteen... Is that everyone? Is anyone missing?" he asked, looking over them once again just to be sure. He was certain he'd gotten them all. "Alright, listen to me. The closest village is just north of the gate, you'll reach it in a few hours. Once you make it there, you can go your seperate ways. Be careful, and if you meet any travelers coming this way, warn them." he instructed. "Now go, and quickly!"

Having done what he could, the knight turned back towards the hallway. "I must return to Lady Lilliane." he uttered softly, trodding along the path, the clinking of his armor echoing down the halls of stone. It certainly wasn't hard to track her Ladyship down from where they had parted. It looked like one of them, most likely Alicia, had rammed straight through every door in their path. Far from subtle, but one did what they had to.

Even without the trail of broken doors, it would not have been hard to find them. He could hear the clash of steel against steel, the roaring flames, the clatter of hooves. All he needed was to follow the sounds of battle to find them. He could hear the shouts of both friend and foe, just down the halls. The black armored knight moved with purpose, unsure of what manner of foe they fought, or the condition of his Lady or their unlikely band of allies.

Rounding the corner, he could see the battle very clearly through the open doors. The very first thing he saw was the man with wings. How could he possibly not see that? Linius stared, awestruck, for but a moment as the man clashed with another, unsure if he could believe his eyes. He was torn away from the sight as Alicia fell, the resounding clang of her armor echoing in his ears. He could see another man in armor, advancing towards Lilliane. His lance gripped firmly in hand, Linius charged, shield forward, practically sprinting in spite of his heavy armor, his battlecry bursting from his lungs, thinking only to protect his Lady.

[Deleted]

"The hell with you!"

Her nerves and self-control already frayed to the point of breaking, the knight's razor-edged tongue was more than enough to snap Lilly's already-deteriorating patience, rendering the burning flame of determination into a raging conflagration of seething flame. Nothing in this stupid exercise had gone right, from start to finish - she'd been ambushed, outmaneuvered, had most of her plans go up in smoke before they even started and survived each issue more through sheer luck and the tenacious efforts of the people who were relying on her to not screw this up than from her own dubious efforts. Feeling so utterly useless had been grating on her throughout this, and having some common bandit swine reinforcing that truth was more than her bruised ego could stand.

Struggling to keep her breathing relatively calm, to at least show some modicum of calculated defiance in the fool's face, Lillianne stood her ground as he trod towards her, focusing on him and him alone. Letting out a shaky breath, the mage rallied what she could of her composure before continuing, her tone edged in a glacial chill. "You know nothing of me, cur, nor have you the right to weigh the worth of my comrades." A thought struck her, and she smiled grimly, her barbed words dripping with acidic venom. "They have already proven the better of the worthless swine you would command, and they - we - will soon bring you and the tattered remains of your army to heel."

She never really did decide if it was a timely sixth sense or sheer luck that Linius arrived when he did; the rumbling of his mailed boots upon the stone floor was enough to break her out of the single-minded focus that had consumed her, nor whether it was an active decision or beginner's luck that she even paid the least bit of attention to the whistling sound to her side as she turned, only realizing almost too late that a cloaked missile was headed out her, a wickedly curved dagger protruding from the man's hand already scything towards her.

Without time to properly panic, much less consider a rational and tactically advantageous response to the unexpected situation, Lillianne settled for detonating the Fire spell she had been building up on the spot, creating a sudden burst of heat and concussive force that hurled her backwards and downwards into the floor while launching her attacker backwards. She lost track of him somewhere around the time she bounced bodily off the floor, more focused on trying to right herself and push through the ringing in her ears than on high-level tactical decisions for the time being.

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[Raylan the Thief reporting in. Max speed OP. His motivation is to cause as much havoc as possible, abusing his speed to move between fights and make a general nuisance of himself - or plunge either of his steel weapons into someone's heart. He and the knight get along very, very badly, though they are quite good at working together. Anyone who isn't currently controlling an enemy is welcome to take control of him, or we can just have him intruding constantly into fights as a third-party NPC everyone controls.]

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The fighter showcased more emotion than he had proven capable of previously, going so far as to raise an eyebrow and tilt his head to the side a few degrees at Aeros' casual deflection of a frontal strike. Withdrawing the axe with practiced ease he brought it slamming to rest over his shoulder, gazing appraisingly at his opponent for the first time - while he did not seem outwardly perturbed, it was obvious that he had not expected that particular sequence of events. After a few seconds, he suddenly broke into a boyish grin, amusement and interest alike written across his brow. "Damn, kid! Do you have swords or some bull strapped to your arms?"

Snorting, he both hands to the axe, bringing it low in readiness for another strike, though none were immediately forthcoming. "But you couldn't just ignore it, could you...?" His expression was warm, almost jovial, but his eyes were cold and dead, intelligent and calculating. "So you're not immortal, whatever you may be. S'pose it's up to me to figure out how to get past your guard then, and your job to keep that from happening, eh?" He shrugged, masking whatever he was truly feeling under the air of casual nonchalance that belied his combat experience. "Should be fun. More so than killing dumbass bandits, anyways. Seriously, those guys are dumber than bricks, but at least they got..."

He trailed off, not really sure what they apparently had. "...Well, you got me there, I guess, I'm not really sure what they bring to the table. Random destruction and an inbred hatred of bathing, I guess. Anyways, uh, 'have at ye' and all that." -At some point in the end of that lilting diatribe, he had already begin to thrust the axehead at Aeros, a quick jab more to probe the boy's defenses while retaining mobility rather than committing fully to a strike.

[Treysin]

[OOC: Hey, I’m going to be joining the thread. I know it is pretty much over, but I need to post. As such I will be one of the people that were held prisoner along with the civilians]

Treysin, the young mage, raced down the hall. His boots’ footfalls would alert even the heaviest of sleeper, as he traveled down the stone halls. He refused the orders to fall back to the near village, for he felt it unright to stay indebted to anyone. His motivation was that he wasn't some kid who. That’s what he kept telling himself at least; the only problem was that he had no real fighting experience except with that of his master training, and never once did he ever think about killing anyone. He keep thinking to himself as he ran, why is it that all these stupid halls all look the same? Where did that guy go? Thinking back on it Treysin he had said he need to help someone, who was it? Treysin could not remember, all he knew is that he or she was trustworthy.

Treysin stopped for a bref moment to catch his breath, but he couldn't help but remeber all of what had happened today. First with being imprisoned with civilans, and not being able to do anything about it. And then meeting another mage who help the people escape. He owed her a lot, and that bothered Treysin. He hated being in debt, especally to another mage. Thinking about it was all he needed to regain his ennergy. After that he began to move again, this time more quietly, as he chased down the man who had helped him, and the rest of the civilans earlier.

Eventually he could hear the echo of heavy armor against the cobblestone. “Wait are those greaves hitting the floor?” He asked the air in small whispers, “I thought that I was the only one here. Still what happened here? I should hurry before I lose him, he could provide me with answers.” And hurry he did as he entered the room he couldn’t believe his eyes, there was a boy whom had wings sprouted from his back. Ignoring that for now, and also his adversary, he continued over to look over at the unconscious Alicia. What happened to her? He pondered in his head before looking at the clad-armor knight. Quickly hiding behind a small archway Treysin stopped to catch his breath, and formulate a plan. Looking back at Alicia, he began trembling, if that kight were able to do that to her; it would be an easy feat to dispatch of someone like him. Taking one last deep breath, Treysin stepped out into the clearing; Not knowing of if it was beginers luck, or the blatante lack of attention that the knight was giving, he was not noticed imminently. Well… It’s now or never, I’ve got one shot at this. He thought to himself as he began to charge his fire spell. But without aiming he threw his attack, passing the knight and hitting the floor next to him. That in turn revealed his position to everyone, and the scolding he’d be getting would be the last thing on his mind.

“What might we have here?” The knight asked as he looked over his shoulder at Treysin, but before he left guard down he turned his attention back to Lilly. And before the inexperienced mage knew it his hands soon became full dealing with the fast moving thief. Before he could ready another attack; a blur of a man came within striking range. Treysin’s first reaction was to hop back slightly, but his luck turned for the worse as the thief had managed to scathe his left arm. Regaining his footing he removed his hand to see the red blood that was left there by his advisory.

“I’m not going to lose to some thug like you.” Treysin whispered, with the echo making it audible to everyone, as he reapplied pressure on his left arm, he knew his position. Nowhere to run, nor hide, so he had to try and out think his enemy; his only choice was to out think his opponent. Treysin readied himself for what could be his first and final fight.

[Aeros]

Calm.

The manakete couldn't be calm, but he wouldn't admit that.

Calm.

He had to stay focused; even as tough as he was...or could make himself...taking more than that one direct strike from an ax was not a good idea.

Stay calm...

The bandit started talking, looking quizzical. Aeros noted with a too-savage satisfaction that he had surprised the man. It was a familiar enough response, he guessed, but here was somebody he didn't need to explain it to somebody who...wouldn't live to...think about it...

Stay calm.

What was he fighting? A bandit, a brigand, someone most people spoke of with only hate and disgust...

Calm.

...Not everyone, though. He had been to places where local bandits had been respected, sometimes admired...usually by their...

Calm.

He couldn't think about this, because if he was going to win this fight...

Calm.

...This man needed to be a monster.

...

Aeros had been listening to everything his opponent said, but when he decided that he needed to win, it had all begun to wash over him, until the only thing he registered was the attack he was sure would come. A short thrust came his way. He missed the caution in it and barreled forward, jumping over the axehead on a path through the air to his opponent, his own caution thrown to the wind.

:. :: .:

Raylan was quick enough to recover. The whelp's plans were transparent and unraveled like a child's knot, but she still appeared to have some surprises in store. The thief's forehead creased as he ducked away from the fight, into an anonymous shadow; from there, he could survey the field, determine his place to strike.

Speaking of said surprises, the two chief among them had to be the winged boy--who appeared to be engaged with that idiot...whats-his-face, he could never remember the slacker's name--and the knight that had just rushed in to support the witch woman. It still seemed a pitiful force to have taken the entire fortress. But then, himself excluded, the fortress was flooded with incompetents and fools, and he it would not surprise him to find formerly lively tools splattered along the outer walls, having tripped over a mug or their own feet or something equally ridiculous.

There was no denying the competence of this group, however, given the circumstances. He just needed to uncover a weak point and exploit it, preferably in a way that resulted in a corpse. Targeting any child that would engage an elder ax-wielder would likely not be the best of plans, and he refused to go anywhere near an avoidable fight with magic...and there were three lovely choices next to that...loathsome...stupifying lackwit that claimed to lead them...

He slowly blinked, sighed, and chose his target. She was down, anyway, so maybe he could finish her before he had to interact with the buffoon. Now, she appeared to be heavily armored, so should he go for the legs or the head...?

Why not both? And with a scowl of concentration, the thief sprang forward, streaking toward his target.