Sorrows Keep

Sorrow's Keep - Graveyard

Located east of the Mithral Mountain Range in the continent of Gaia, the forsaken Sorrow's Keep Ruins emanate an aura of unease and foreboding. Today Sorrow's Keep is just an empty place where you can hear the winds soughing over the remnants of decayed buildings and withered stone. But a millennium ago, these fragments were part of a citadel, home of a powerful devil-mage, who eventually met his fate through the hands of a group of adventurers who set out together to defeat the evil nestled in this place. Sorrow's Keep is still a condemned area today, avoided by many and said to bear the curse of Draeger, the horror, who had reigned in these halls. The Graveyard surrounding the ruined tower will serve as the battleground for the fighters this round. Leaving the graveyard is an automatic ring-out.

[align=center]General - Tombstones, and unmarked graves dot the fighting area.

Weapons - None

Natural Element Resource - None

Bonus Effects - Minor boost to dark/unholy magics, minor debuff to holy/white magics.

Cue the horror movie soundtrack...

Footsteps, and life, were coming up the path towards the graveyard. Ancient detritus from weeds and horrible yellowing grass litterd the entire area. And strange birds watched as a woman with a bit of life in her walked calmly towards the stone monolith that was Sorrow's Keep.

The gate didn't creak, didn't slowly open before she got to it, nor did it look more then a quite functional bit of iron mongery. And somehow that was just wrong. More then the actual apperence of the place, the mangled foliage the bent and broken wall, the damaged and faulty gravestones. You'd really expect the way in would be an almost forceful affair.

But the way into the Graveyard was obviously well used, and maintained. And there was no way out, other then the same gate, which only opened inwards. Deep grooves in the path spoke of carts that would bring...unmentionable things to the tower that dominated the landscape.

Alison Harmony stood out against the backdrop like a flower in a dead bramble bush. Speaking of brambles. She carefully unhooked the points from the edges of her jacket before they ripped through and caught her. The bushes hugged up against the stone in places and were a devil at snagging. She stood a little further away from the bushes as the gate clanged back into place on it's lock...which was on the outside. The blonde was beginning to see an unfortunate pattern about this place. Undaunted, for the time being, she waited, either for other team-mates, or for opponents.

The secretary did see the woman standing and talking out in the open, but she remained outside the main area, and Alison was stood within. So she wasn't entirely sure whether it was wise to go up for a casual chat. There was something rather unsettling about the audience for this fight.

Sol would very suddenly find a pair of glasses. Glaring. At him. From somewhere in the vicinity of his stomach. A long shapely leg slammed into the side of the door, cutting Sol off . These lightly tanned soft pillars ended, some significant time later, in a pair of suggestively cut jean shorts just managing to show a scandalous amount of curve. She'd been issued them with an underlined passage in her contract, with smilie faces all over it.

"So this is what Mr. Brown meant by contracting me to wear these."

There was a dent in the metal where she'd stomped it. It was lucky Sol had been broadcasting so much noise, else Harmony herself would have ended up under that gate. She was a little P.O.ed. Just slightly irritated. And that had been just for having to wear the cut-offs.

"You're enthusiasm is admirable Mr. Blackwell."

She dug her heel in, making a metal grinding noise, Alison actually gave the impression that she wished it was a spine.

"Most. Admirable. However, please ensure when you next break atmosphere that innocent personelle are not in the way."

You could have frozen nuts for the winter with her tone.

Lacey was just in time to watch as the bright colored Dodge flew through the graveyard gates. It was loud and dangerous, but the demonologist had to admit the team could make an entrance.

Her tennis shoes caused the dead grass beneath her to noisily crunch as she made her way towards the fallen gate. The blunt end of her staff dragged, only slightly, behind her, eyes were downcast, her whole form gave off a 'I don't really want to be here' vibe. Sure she'd come dressed to fight, pants and a t-shirt, and she did feel a bit ready, but she didn't want to. Nothing Damnatus said would change that.

Lacey was here though. She was going to fight, whether she wanted to or not. Pausing beside a particularly large tombstone, an angel, the size of a small child, knelt praying at the top, in view of the other team. The staff, which she held in her right hand rose a bit as her soft voice barely broke over their conversation.

"Which one of you am I suppose to be fighting?"

"What are the good ol' boys gonna do now? Faced down with opponents with a snakes belly full of aberrant magic, and a backyard that would give them a whole heap of a helping hand."

Joseph was narrating the whole drive with Sol in an appropriately silly voice. He was also holding a glass of some clear liquid and jangely ice in an attempt to take his mind off last night and the coming match. Neither were very pleasant things to think about, and hell, it wasn't like he was the one driving.

"Not so for the home team. The dark and nasty strangers would find their tricks and traps as potent as Uncle Jesse's moonshine, while Never Knows Best had brought their horseshoes to a baseball game. No friends. All Never Knows Best could squeeze out was a kick in the teeth and a feeling as warm as the hangman's noose... Ok." Joseph looked what Sol was doing and reverted back to his normal voice, "Normally we would freeze right before hitting the gate, so maybe if you want to... Oh... Shi-"

It took an amazing amount of coordination to swing his glass through the air so he didn't spill a drop. Difficult, but not impossible. He only brought one and sure as hell the car floor wasn't going to get it. Second impact was the worst, and it took Joseph a few quiet moments and a few sips to regain his composure. He very carefuly undid his seatbelt, and then slowly opened the passenger door to get out. Feet firmly on the ground he placed his drink on the roof of the car. Then he continued.

"Yes, the down home team is gonna have to pull up their pants and rub on the elbow grease if they're to shoot down these snake oil salesmen from Lucifer's corn field." And he leaned against the hood, "Whole things gonna be as difficult as wrastling a greased pig, and twice as messy."

He looked over and grinned at Allison. He was somewhat dressed for the part too, red plaid pattered shirt with the sleeves rustically rolled, blue jeans, and a black vest for a touch of class. Of course all the machinery was there too, that was just a given at this point.

"Evenin' Miss Harmony." The drawl made it twice as intolerable. Joseph had been unsettled since his nightmare, so he took it out on Allison.

And suddenly, Lacey.

"And good evening to you too." This time he spoke normally as he turned back to Allison, "Surely you'd want to put all that pent up aggression to good use Miss Harmony. How about showing our guest how it's done down home, y'hear."

The blonde stepped forward and Lacey guessed this would be here opponent, and the man in the flannel shirt confirmed it when he'd spoken to her.

Alison? "Lacey Trigger." She gave a slight nod to the two others, vaguely thinking she'd rather be on a team with these jokers than with the ones she joined with.

"Right," the halberd was out and all Lacey could think was: what do you get with two blondes, a halberd, and a spear? The only answer she could come up with was, 'one ******** up tournament'.

Lacey left her spot next to the tombstone and walked towards her opponent, the spear no longer dragging on the ground but raised a little in her right hand, the split tip slightly in front of her, ready to block a blow from the halberd if necessary.

"Shall we, then?" Her team wasn't there yet, which might be good for her, them not seeing her fight.

Standing there, she felt slightly awkward. Most of her life was spent studying demons in a small room, not out on the streets fighting them like the hunters she talked to. And even if she had, this girl in front of her didn't seem to be any sort of demon, though looks could be deceiving. Lacey should know that, besides the lime green scars that ran down the sides of her face and the bloody bandages over her arms, it would be difficult to tell she was possessed.

Anyway, fighting wasn't her thing, she'd been practicing though, and working out. Her body felt much more powerful than it had when she arrived here, but was she a fighter? Guess it's time to find out.

Joseph Brown Wrote:

"Evenin' Miss Harmony."

Internal eye-twitch.

Alison didn't waste a lot of time between standing for the introductions and diving in headfirst towards the taller blond. And this was even before Joseph had laid the invitation out there. Lacy of team Al Azif, lets see how determined your spear really is.

Again the glass from the frames on her nose flashed in the dim lighting as she moved in, immediately on the offensive. The ground was softer then her liking. So Alison abruptly sprinted along what was left of a series of stone-lidded coffins, sunk into the ground but more solid then the spongey grass. Having plotted out the course that had the best opportunity for making faster ground, with the least amount of snag.

She was aware of Lacey's physical outlook, but if that bothered her greatly it didn't show for the moment. If the other woman was packing a pretty dark punch, it was better to find out up close and personal then sit twiddling her thumbs and writing memo's to Boss Hog and the Boys back behind her.

Alison advanced as close as she could get and attacked in from the right. Attempting to run straight through Lacey's reluctant defence. The axe blade verticle, and the stainless steel tip made a b-line towards Lacey's center, with the idea that even in deflection, the other girl may not avoid getting a side wound.

Alison would have been more then simply nearsighted if she hadn't recognized the extreme implications of having a bunch of metal that close to her face, head, and neck. Her eyes widened at the feel of it sliding against her shoulder. Realization aside, she calmly moved forwards with the momentum she'd already gained from running that distance and with a whoosh of breath, Alison ducked lower.

Since her halberd had nothing solid holding it in after the first attack, there was nothing stopping her from remaining aggressive, or in fact, stop at all.

Alison drove her left shoulder straight into Lacey's undamaged right side like a tiny footballer. Both women meeting with a solid thunk, since Lacey herself had been driven forward.

The impact wouldn't have the same effect as someone of Sol's size and weight against Lacey, in reality it was just somewhere forceful for Alison to go and avoid a face full of spear pole. A small bonus was that boney shoulder meeting kidney at full tilt wouldn't be pleasent, and she knew, absolutely that she didn't want to be anywhere near the end of that weapon.

As cartilidge ground against bone in her shoulder joint, Miss Harmony was surprised to find that the force nearly pushed her arm out of it's socket. She hadn't expected Lacey to move that quickly after taking damage.

Just outside the cemetery wall a small mound of earth rose and broke apart from within. A shovel blade split the ground from under, rather than above like any normally person would expect. What followed the shovel was an unsurprisingly filthy, desiccated, older-looking man. Just like all the other corpses buried here his skin stuck to his bones like wet paper and was just as white.

Shaking some dirt from the cluster of black dreadlocks, Tombs stood as straight as his hunched back would allow him. Staking the shovel into the ground he brushed his ratty clothes free of the dirt he collected from being under the ground with equally-dirty hands.

Having finally arrived Tombs glanced about at all the commotion, apparently confused about where he was. It wouldn't take long for the senility to wear off and his senses to return, the realization dawning on him with a raspy

"...Oh."

He was at the Keep.

"Mmph!?"

O//////////////////////////////O

Alison was abruptly yanked into something quite soft and yeilding, her face pressed to Lacey's bosom and the other woman remaining strangly immobile. Lacey smelled of blood and...and...She made a strangled noise of embarassment and instantly tried to break the hold, feet digging into the dirt. How had they not toppled over? The secretary was fairly certain that her opponents feet weren't entrenched into the ground so how-?

She jammed the end of her halberd into the dirt between Lacey's legs, trying to wedge herself out, her foot automatically coming down on the other womans. Then pressure built around her waist, and SOMETHING grabbed her. Alison felt something like the mental equvalent to radio feedback, her head screaming to her body, without any sort of connection.

She didn't exactly faceplant, her grip on her weapon automatically clutching, even though she couldn't feel her fingers, but she was very forcefully thrown to her knees, legs framing the blade and missing slicing herself by a good few inches.

The road to Sorrow's Keep was long, if you came the right way.

And the right way it was. If tardiness was stylish then Nikolai was a model. After the last somewhat disappointing bout of violence, if less so sound and crowd, had left him hungry at its end there had been less interest in arriving as very soon as he possibly could. And so long after the camera crews and staff had arrived and set up, and the first fight had long since begun, two sets of wide stretched wheels rattled up the path in desperate struggle to keep themselves propelled forward and rattling over out sticking roots and rocks.

"GIVE ME MORE!"

Limousines were not made for off-roading.

On the other hand, they were good for parties. Everyone inside of this vehicle was having a most inappropriately good time for those rolling up on an ancient graveyard- and so much more. A woman let off an intoxicated shriek, clapping until a jarring bump threw her to keep her balance, as the bald ex-mafioso and a man who looked like he belonged in one still threw back bottles- the only way to chug. Down, down, down the hatchet, until the smaller fellow choked, breaking into coughing, then laughter, emptying what was left over his leg and the floor half-lucid. Nikolai kept drinking until the last of the liquid vanished, and finished by sticking the mouth of the bottle between his teeth-

It shattered off to further applause of the packed back end, crunching between his teeth. The woman slapped a meaty hand off her thigh with a giggle, and simply continued laughing through the haze of the smoke drifting through the back of the car as it crept back.

This was how life was meant to be lived.

The back of a limo full of things normal ******** dreamed off. It didn't matter that the alcohol didn't touch him. This was what Nikolai was here for. He was a goddamn king. THE tit-shitting king himself.

Possession.

Power.

People.

A forest green velvet suit with a charcoal tie and vest over his sunglow-yellow silk shirt. He felt his boots should be black for that, so the hide foot wear had black polish smeared thick all across them, and his bracers, well, ****** them. Not worth the effort, left their patchwork hide brown. He was a sharp b***d. He dared those punk camera men not to film that until eyes bled.

The glass crunched, and he spat the tinkling mess across laps, reaching for a bottle of the expensive stuff, ripping the cork out with his teeth and tipping it back to-

-nnNnnnnnnnNNNNNNiiiIIiiiiI-

His eyes opened, staring blankly as he tried to listen. But it wasn't something he could hear. Something strange it felt...

-iiiiiIiikoooonNNNnnnnsssSoooooooha-

Tight. And heavy. Distracting. It wasn't enough. He drank faster and faster, trailed of champagne streaming down his cheek and dripping over his collar while he chugged.

-sohaaaHAungggggggGray-

Stretching and pulling. Tightening. Thirsty. Hungry. Desperate. He couldn't hold it. Something, something more. Fury. He smashed the battle and grabbed another, clenching his eyes tight as he practically stuffed it into his throat and bit into the glass, letting the alcohol run free into his mouth. When it was done he continued stuffing the glass in, chewing it up.

No. He was always hungry. This was just more. It wasn't enough just to eat, not even for the moment. He could feeeeeeel it now. ******** something. He needed it. He wanted it. It was that something more he needed. That taste of pure being on the lips. It was here. It was big, and he could taste it in the air. It wasn't just a morsel. It was the flesh of the gods. Making him powerful. The strength. The hunger. The hunter. He could see the bags of meat next to him shifting and all he had to do was-

-nnNnNIIikolllllllll-

So hungry.

I need it.

IT'S MINE.

Nikolai blinked and growled, baring his teeth, and shoved the people aside, shoving his hand through the window into the front of the limo. He felt it there, soft, warm, giving slightly to his fingers.

"GOD WHAT ARE YOU-"

The car lurched and swerved violently as he squeeze tighter on the driver's skull, making him shout out. Yanking the head back toward him, everyone kicked back as the vehicle accelerated. One of the tires gave, and the limo bucked, taking the bouncing up a notch.

"STOP. HERE."

"Let- Let go-"

"STOP THE ******** CAR SHITHEAD."

The vehicle tilted off the side of the road, bumping violently as it clung to the top of a decline, by sheer luck and effort of the driver keeping itself from flipping into a ditch before he finally let off and hit the break hard, throwing everything about inside the vehicle violently.

Nikolai forcibly shoved flesh and cloth aside, ignoring noises of protest as he reached the door and kicked it open, climbing up out of the car, sagging against the side of it.

An arm reached out to follow in the escape. With a disdainful growl, the thug planted his boot in the middle of the man's chest, shoving him back in, and slamming the door hard enough to shatter the glass.

"It's MINE. MiiiIiINnne."

Ohohohoho. He didn't know what this was. He'd figure it out when he got there, what he'd do about it. So bizarre. So strange. The hunger was changing, pulsing and living beyond him, even as he struggled and established control again. Nikolai remembered why he was there. What he was doing. But ******** that.

Nothing was getting in his way. It was like a glow of pure power on the skin. Sheer agony of the absolute sweetest, most addictive sort he'd ever known. Clearly this place was his.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeeeeeeah.

The gate was close, within sight, and smashed across the ground. Nikolai chortled and giggled to himself as he stumbled up the violently ripped clean path to the graveyard, balance and control coming back to him as he went. Feeling the pulse grow, but he was getting used to it. The hunger didn't control him. No, ******** that. He didn't need to control it either. He was the bloody, kicking hunger. He jerked on his tie, pulling it out of the vest and shrugging, then shaking violently, loosening his body and suit up. He patted all the weapons at his side to make sure they were there, and slung the shield up, fighting the strap to get it over his back, and then moving it down to his arm, gripping tight. The nice weight. Hunger. Power. Force.

A glorious garish mess he was.

Nikolai ******** West.

The ******** king.

He almost didn't notice the man leaned against the gate until he had stepped between the posts where the metal had used to stand, looking at the large iron structures slung across the earth.

Plenty of meat.

Tempting...

But he could smell it, something further inside he wanted.

It'd come to him, or he'd find it.

Nikolai's already too wide lips spread, baring nearly all of his teeth in a twisted grin, contorting all the skin of his bald head, stretching out the tattoos... which, as if live snakes disturbed by the pull, began to distort clearly on their own.

"Nice day."

He spat the remains of the glass and champagne across the ground as far as he could, aiming for Sol's shoes and pant legs, and turned back to the graveyard, marching inward in long steps, clanging across the downed metal gates, ignoring the man behind him, chortling to himself as he went.

Come out, come oooooout-

Forget toppling over (mostly because the narrator forgot and blames the insomnia) Lacey was more worried about the sharp thing that was MIA. She wasn't sure where it had gone until it was stuck down between the two women.

When her opponent when down, Lacey's left hand dropped the spear, she still held on with her right though, and she took a couple of steps back. If the girl hadn't hurried and gotten up at this time, the demonologist would bring her right foot up and attempt to slam the sole of her shoe into the girls head.

She suddenly felt very bad about the way she was fighting. It wasn't like her, if the kick connected she'd go back another couple of steps and just stand there. Kicking a girl while she's down? Eyebrows furrowed as she looked at her opponent, feeling disgusted with herself. She was almost tempted to slink back inside herself and let the demon take control, but she knew it would just be worse it she did.

3/17

Sol had probably been mistaking Nikolai for someone who cared about what sort of looks he had to shoot him. If he had seen the look, maybe the brute would have had a good chuckle at that too. Not much sooner than he had noticed shackles standing there than he'd lost interest. There were more important things after all. Bigger, tastier fish to-

"--!?"

It seemed he'd pissed off Mr straps-and-chains even more than he'd been gunning for. With a body roughly his own considerable size barreling like a train down on Nikolai, he had just enough time to freeze mid step and widen his eyes. Not scared. Maybe surprised. The grin stuck, twisting his face. The laugh bubbled out one last thick croak. No, not surprised.

The word "excited" suited it so much better.

--KHRACK--

The sound of skull collecting to jaw, slamming teeth into teeth, vibrated audibly through both men's skulls, in one sharp cacophony of impact between uncushioned bone. A quick clear jolt straight into the frame of the body and nervous system, waking all that animal instinct like the ******** who dragged his socks all around the carpet and then touched a large dog's ear. The grin had spared Nikolai chomping off a bit of lip or tongue at least, and he had to admit- chuckles here had a solid skull. Not hard enough to put more than a small ache into Nikolai's jaw, but he felt his brain go for a rollercoaster ride while his vision went a'swimmin'. Like a jolly ol' vacation in his head, except-

The breath went out of him in a wheeze, followed shortly by a second, smaller one.

Despite the short jolt of dizziness, Nikolai could tell when they hit the ground, packed earthen path hitting back like he'd grabbed the damned ball and forgotten to run. His arms came up on instinct before chuckles even put him onto the earth, but without any space to get up between them they came 'round behind the big lug. And as they jounced on impact with the third party in their Nikolai-sandwich those arms clamped down, wrapping his right around the offending leg while the left went higher. Just shoving down for a moment of confusion on impact, before, very purposefully pressing down high on his back with the rim of the shield, aiming for the back of the neck, to keep him from trying any funny business like running away giggling or mounting up like some kind of f**. Just holding the sucker in place how they'd landed for a minute to reap the rewards of his little stunt.

If Sol was particularly perceptive, as far someone who'd had a few short seconds since hitting the ground in which to try to deal with being grabbed by someone his own considerable size, he might notice Nikolai's stomach still rapidly bouncing, as if still trying to laugh.

But he'd probably be distracted by the pain flaring in his side.

Wham, bam, and as much as Nikolai preferred when that ended with a "thank you b***h," his new buddy here had just given him quite the nice view. Not that Nikolai could see much without proper time to blink the watering out of his eyes, but it wasn't just one of them with a thick skull, and it took more than that to phase the guy enough not to notice when a big meaty steak was being waved around right in front of his face. Or at least, whatever the shitty cut he'd been offered was called. Not that this was the important part.

With his face nearly against Sol's stomach, it didn't even really take any of that "effort" or "thought" stuff chumps loved so much.

Nikolai just raised his head, opened his mouth, and sank his teeth right in. Not just into the skin. Sure, live flesh was tougher than one would normally give it credit for. But if nothing else ol' Sol had just helped prove to everyone that Nikolai had no normal man's jaw. Pressure that didn't belong in any head that could count plowed the front cutting teeth clean through the skin and into the flesh under, scraping as much as his mouth could fit around from the ribs, letting the hot blood fill his mouth and send the chill of primal power in a thing's lifeblood down his spine, like a shot of the house's strongest.

Even better if shackles here had some little love handles to give him a more proper mouth full. He'd shear through the flesh the side of the body had to offer lickity-split, leaving just the little matter of creating a good enough tug to rip the last bits free before he could get to chewing nice and proper.

What a way to start the day.

Gluttony Wrote:

• The Kill [Bite] If Nikolai can sink his teeth into a foe, they are in a great deal more trouble than any meager touch. Aside from the harm he is capable of, Nikolai steals a minimum of 2 charges from his quarry, even if it has no magical ability. If they have more than 2 charges, Nikolai steals up to half, rounded down, of their charges and gains as many charges instantly, suffering the same light injuries as in the Trail on his lower face and neck. The Kill functions only on creatures, not inanimate objects.

[1/17]

Sol was bemused with his actions he had essentially succeeded in ******** Nikolai’s chest with his knee twice the fact the man was still able to breathe was surprising let alone laugh but it was there all the same. Sol wasn’t about to let the man get into some stupid grappling fight with him however, this was about as much ground fighting as Sol really intended to do today. With his right knee held in place by his new friend hr brought his other knee up onto the mans chest and pulled his upper body away from the man or at least as much as he could so as to prevent the man from getting the leverage necessary to pull on his neck. It however did NOT prevent him from leaning forward and taking a bite into his left side.

“You ******** Bit me! You Pineapple sucking whore!”

It hurt, there was no denying it but it wasn’t like punks hadn’t tried to bite him when being thrown out of a building before. But still he had ****** bit him, what the hell? There really was only one course of action at this point the had to release this ****** leach with as much force as possible.

Sol Immediately rolled to his right so as not rive the mans teeth further into his side bringing the man now onto of sol with both his knees folded up between them, sure Sol was going to launch then guy but not just yet….

Taking his chain wrapped left fist her balled into a fist and snuggled it tightly up into Nikolais temple the arm somewhat keeping the mans shield arm at bay, not so much a hit as a slight smack, which would probably only encourage him to bite more, which at this point there was little Sol could do to prevent that. His right fist on the other hand cocked back and Slammed full force into the mans opposite temple , the hammer striking the metal into the chain wrapped anvil of a fist. Not once, not twice, but three times. Each time a little more vindictive.

• THWACK-

• THWACK-

• THWACK-

Lets rewind a bit and reintroduce all the parties uninvolved.

Fist meet Temple, Temple meet Brain, Brain meet Skull, Skull meet Chain-covered Fist.

All introduced?

Good.

This was just to give the leech a good shaking up before He grabbed the back of the man head rolled back and pushed him vertically over Sols body so as to get the ****** off of him and slam him to the ground directly opposite. Sol wasn’t about to waste anymore time cuddling with this ******, and rolled away from his opponent to regain his footing..

Ya know having a bit of your torso bitten out suck rather majorly, was it going to kill him? No, but damn if it wasn’t about the most unpleasant sensation he’d felt in years. This sicko was tough too, three hits even if not the most effective hits to a man temple has got to suck for anyone but this guy took it like he had just been slapped.

Sol was not unfortunately able to shake off the pain in his side as easily as Nikolai was able to shrug off the damage to his skull and ribcage, And that made Sol more than slightly frustrated. He knew he could continue the fight, but it still was not exactly how he had expected this fight to go. ******** biters, what is this preschool?

He guess its time he disciplined the child then.

Sol got to his feet and tucked his left arm up again the bleeding wound, it wasn’t to stop the bleeding or anything like that. There weren’t any arteries out side of the ribcage to worry too much about the blood loss just yet, and since he was a fairly fit man there really wasn’t much to be bitten off. None the less however the bit of flesh that was there had fallen to the mud not far from where Nikolai had bitten it out, now lost and ground into the dirt from the two men rolling away from each other.

Sol was stiff from the pain and sticky as the blood ran down his left side and onto his till recently nice clean pants, this was doubly insulting now not just because of the disrespect to his clothes but also because the guy had quite literally tasted Sols blood, an infuriating concept, obviously he needed to return the favor if he was going to stay in the fight.

“You can call me Sol, but I don’t intend to let you leave here with enough of a jaw left to speak it.”

So now here they were both of the were up and off the ground he simply brought his right hand up into a fist and slid his left leg back, he was as ready as he was going to get for his guy considering how outgunned he was in weaponry. Sols head was now fully clear of the earlier head butt and he had a good solid stance now it was up to Nikolai to step into Sols house and try and walk away.

“So why don’t you come over here and Get it out of your system.”

Not ninja, though it was a move that made various muscles scream in protest. Alison had simply run out of hard ground to use and had to make do with something that wouldn't slow her down. If that meant catching footing a bit sideways on a bit of the stage, so be it. There was a crack as the stone was asked to accept the force of her weight and momentum at the same time, dust and lichen scattered outwards.

Then she was incoming. At the clang of deflected metal (Harmony's halberd was reinforced aluminum in the pole, and light steel in the rest), when the wood and metal of Lacey's slammed into it, Alison let it drift outward, and reversed her grip. She yanked it back down through her fingers, sending the opposite end slamming into Lacey's shoulder as her opponent rolled backwards, planting it deeply in the hollow between joint and ribcage, and going higher then the other womans feet could push upwards.

Using that as a push, her momentum carried her just as well as Lacey's feet, forcing her over her own weapon and the other woman in a running stumble as the give against skin was worse then the solidness of bone. But she'd wanted it to be painful, rather then supportive.

Most pole vaulters don't end up taking their poles with them, but Alison could not afford to leave it behind, which upset her balance on the softer ground and sent her rolling into the brambles with a whoosh.

The stone cross finally gave up the ghost after that, and with a sad sound fell with a whump in an obvious delayed reaction, right in the audiences view, throwing up bits of skeleton, cobwebs, dust and dirt.

The steel halberd slammed into Lacey's left shoulder and felt said shoulder pop and some of the other bones break. A wail escaped her as her left leg gave out, sending Alison more towards the side than helping her go over Lacey's head. Lacey had experience with a dislocated shoulder and she could pop it back in herself, but there were a few things stopping that: 1. The current fight, 2. the fact that she didn't know which bones were broken.

She rolled towards her right, away from her opponent. Her left leg stretched out so as to stop her from rolling all the way over onto her bad shoulder and to help her up to a kneeling position. The hand holding her spear abandoned it to grab hold of her left wrist. Tears ran down her face as she began to lift her up and over her head and pulled it towards her right. If this went uninterrupted there would be a loud pop as the humerus found it's place. It was not pleasant, especially since the nerves would be all sorts of screwed and the clavicle bone, at least the part near her shoulder would be fractured in some form.

This time when Lacey felt the tingle and pain in her arms and weird sting in her eyes as her dark brown iris's faded to lime green, she did nothing. The demon taking over was a welcome relief to having to deal with this pain.

The bandages and skin on her forearms would begin to peel and fall away as if someone was flaying the skin from her arms. Green goo and blood would fall beneath her as large three fingered claws emerged from their hiding place. Well, if anyone was wondering why her arms had been bandaged and bloody they got their answer.

5/17

"Ssol..?"

Nikolai didn't say it like he was trying to get it right. No, the question in his voice was more... scrutinizing. Doubtful. Like the bodyguard had just offered him a poor suggestion rather than stating his name.

He shook his head.

Naw. Sol would never do. But what?

Pineapple?

Naaaah.

Nikolai grinned and lurched forward a step, halting, and seeming to take a moment more to recover his balance as the world tried one last little bit of spinning on him. He couldn't care less that he had blood streaming down his chin and over his silk shirt. Not except to loll out his tongue, licking up what was in easy access away briefly. The smell was still all over him, right in his face, driving him nuts. But he could practically taste a trail of it back to where it was all coming from, spreading the scent through the air, a line right to the only possible source, like someone had popped mom's very best in the oven. Other smells overlapped it, but the sharp, delicious tang drove itself to the foreground even if he'd wanted to ignore it. Just to savor for a moment.

Which almost made one wonder why his pal here was sitting back like a bum instead of trying to wail on Nikolai while he'd been recovering? He hadn't been that big of a chunk out of him. He could have done it just fine while he'd still been wobbling.

Heh. Your loss, shitstick.

Nikolai wiped at a small trail of blood from his split temple with his sleeve, and started forward again, one slow step as he put his hand to his belt, and in a quick flick like a man whipping out a familiar knife, he had the hammer in his hand. The thick paw loosened and let it sink until the head sat against the top of his fist before he gripped tight again.

Now he had himself a steel punch. Just like the ol' boy.

He couldn't be bothered with the fact that Sol hadn't had the mind to bring his own personal shield with him. Drakrand stayed on the left too. Nikolai took a step forward, and gave one good pant- his breath turning to frost in the air not nearly cold enough for it- and then he took off.

Sol was better at the sudden burst of speed, but Nikolai wasn't slow either. His right hand drew back as his foot kicked off, wide and open, broad casting a killer haymaker before he even came to arm's reach.

First, though, Sol was going to have to concern himself with the shield, as the thug led by thrusting the rim forcefully at the center of his collar and chin just as he closed, holding Drakrand turned vertically. Nothing to compare to a good hit from either of their meaty, steel reinforced fists, but still painful. If he didn't stop the blow, besides that it'd sting something fierce, Nikolai would let the force flatting the shield's face out against... well, Sol's face, as he continued to press forward on it.

Regardless of whether he got the hit in with the shield or not, the intent was simple.

He just wanted to prevent Sol feeding him a straight as soon as he got within arm's reach, and keep him distracted, or block his sight, just long enough to drop his right elbow, and turn that "haymaker" that had been coming into a wide uppercutting motion, sucker punch to the ribs.

Only lead with the steel head of his war hammer.

[3/17]

The Hanging Man Wrote:

"I have a lot of pets."

"I know, but I only care about dragons, drakes, wyverns, and dinosaurs this month."

Descant lowered her hand, taking his head shaking as a sign that he felt himself fine and would rather not have someone picking through it. She did have to admit that he kept himself up well.

The Hanging Man Wrote:

He looked back to the shenanigans.

"I don't understand."

"Tzenidaar."

Descant faced the graveyard and frowned all over again, her arms folding under her robes.

"He'll try again. I want to try it for myself, too, but I really could've done without having the fight right in the graveyard, of all places."

It was just a pain to clean, you know? All that rock and dirt. They were evil, but evil didn't have to be unkempt. Descant was rather neat herself, hair always in some presentable manner, and her entourage lacking the most horrid scents that would give them away.

"Sorry if this woke you~" Taking a step to the side, she hefted herself up onto the shoulders of the one ghoul that was following her. She rested her arms on his skull.

"...But now that you're here, can I ride on your shoulders?"

Cue broad, toothy grin and creepy, happy, wide-eyed smile. Not that Tombs wouldn't be used to it by now.

04 Spriggan Wrote:

"Tzenidaar."

Descant faced the graveyard and frowned all over again, her arms folding under her robes.

"He'll try again. I want to try it for myself, too, but I really could've done without having the fight right in the graveyard, of all places."

None of this was really much of an answer. Tombs was generally out of the loop and didn't bother with things he had no stake in. But there was a fairly large group of living people fighting amongst themselves right next to the Keep.

Tombs had seen people get messed up for less than that.

Quote: "Sorry if this woke you~" Taking a step to the side, she hefted herself up onto the shoulders of the one ghoul that was following her. She rested her arms on his skull.

"...But now that you're here, can I ride on your shoulders?"

Tombs only looked at her.

The necromancer wasn't an athlete by any stretch of the imagination. He was pretty short for Gaian-types, and had some obvious back problems. Which is why he didn't bother with an answer. Instead, he clasped his hands over the end of the shovel and leaned into it, resting his chin on his hands.

"Do you always make your ghouls carry you?" This time he managed a voice entirely unhindered by the Chinese menu of physical problems of his body and more fitting for someone of ordinary middle age. It may not have fit what Tombs currently looked like, but that didn't matter at all.

Since Descant was more interested in piggyback rides than having the ghoul go out and start making the living less alive it didn't seem like anyone was going to do something about the whole trespassing thing. For now Tombs would have to make do with looking out over his hands at the fights and imagining how much better they'd look undead.

Behold, the great evil of the Council. To fight the living. To spread undeath. To demand piggyback rides. She did have a point, though. Tombs had some difficulty getting around in a timely manner most of the time.

The necromancer swayed back and forth, rocking side to side while he leaned on the shovel. It was another one of those absent minded displays you'd expect of senile old people. Next week, Tombs would probably be holding up traffic in a crosswalk or behind a shopping cart frustrating anyone trying to get through the frozen foods section of a supermarket.

Or hauling a** on a dragon and doing horrible things to the innocent. Hard to tell.

With a slight shake of his head Tombs admitted his ignorance.

"I don't."

This was probably one of those things that he'd know if he vested a more serious interest with the Council. Rather than disappearing for weeks at a time, but Tombs was a busy corpse.

"I see."

Leaning forward on her transportation, Descant went through the (rather unnecessary) process of coiling down and around the ghoul's body like the serpent-type she was, until she was free of him, and physically standing next to Tombs once more. She lowered her voice, despite the fact that no-one was searching for this information. The situation felt correct for it, though.

"Tzen is a chimera Decruda created... as far as I know, the first he's created, at least using this method." Decruda was a person of few words and actual explanations when he wanted to be, which was perfectly fine with her. "He's made from some of the world's most famous, renowned fighters. He's got the latent ability to do every magical attack they can do, and modify it for his own needs. Beyond that, I'm sure he has some of their properties. He's hard to miss, if you ever see him; big skeletal wings. They look impressive enough."

Descant looked down to the set of gold rings she was wearing.. gaudy, large things.

"Anyway, he rebelled against Decruda and left in a big uproar. Big fight, lost a chunk of ghouls, but I wasn't here for it. Seems that Decruda doesn't mind anymore, since I'm here to get more samples, so he can try again."

Tombs might have had something to say but the statement died in thought. His mouth opened, and closed shortly after. The eyes focused sharply forward, actually looking at what was before him. Not that he was suddenly more interested in the fights.

The swaying stopped in the same moment and Tombs stood slightly straighter. Whatever it was had the necromancer's interest enough to shake him out of the foggy haze that an ancient mortal body carried with it. Whatever unholy torrent of energy suddenly berthed nearby was probably by definition foreign; and at the same time, for Tombs, utterly familiar.

Tombs rolled his head to the side, still rested on his hands, to glance over at the out-of-place flora spawned by unnatural forces in an already unnatural place. The green eyes, now rather ageless, narrowed at what the storm had delivered.

"Such guests we have." The voice was the definition of indifferent, monotone, and so mild of volume that it spoke of a lack of effort by the speaker to make it heard by anyone save those already near enough to understand it.

The careless posture belied Tombs' newfound focus and the subtle hint of animation to his features. Regardless, the necromancer had no answers for anyone.

Detached.

It was the perfect description of how the somber figure of Damnatus appeared as he observed the clash of the two brutes. It was, by far, the most intense of the conflicts that raged throughout the cold landscape. It appeared as though Nikolai and the beast of a man he was raging with were evenly matched, with bursts of force from either side that temporarily shattered their deadlocks. Despite the intensity and ferocity, and despite that the fight might decide the outcome of the whole round, the warp sorcerer's demeanor remained utterly calm and uncaring. Still, he paid attention, but it was the kind of attention a scientist would afford a pair of mice that attempted to maneuver their way out of a convoluted maze. It held no true or deep interest or care, whatsoever. However, scientists often introduced certain stimuli to these scenarios, to observe and note how the specimen reacted to the push or prod.

At a particular point in time, such a thought occurred to the psyker.

It was time for more...experiments.

STRIKER ASSIST

As soon as his right foot pressed into the grave soil just inside the designated fighting ring, Damnatus' respective hand went to his left wrist and pressed the STRIKER button. The 10 second countdown began immediately afterward, and the sorcerer was just as quick to react. His now-free right shot down to a leather hide pouch at his belt, quickly wormed it open, and grabbed a handful of stuff in it. As he yanked it out, bits of luminescent green particles sifted out of the cracks in his grip, sparking unnaturally in the moonlight. As this occurred, the man had been continuing his march forward, bringing him closer to the two combatants - namely, coming up from behind Nikolai's opponent. At a bit above the 3 second mark in, Damnatus' thin mouth pulled into what appeared to be a sneer, and called out.

"Kzz`xykt-gal."

And with that, the warp sorcerer's right lashed out before him like a snake, casting the Warpstone dust contained within before him. The words that he uttered where wholly inhuman - literally. The Tongue of Daemons came out as harsh, impossible syllables and consonants that stopped and flowed chaotically. Coming from a human mouth, the tongue had harsh consequences - small splits suddenly formed on Damnatus' mouth, causing tiny trickles of blood to sluice down frown lines. The tongue was not used to scare others, though; no, in combination with the somatic gesture of the dust throwing, it brought upon something else.

All around the man, the air began to distort and shimmer. Odd colors and blinking lights filtered into the air, and it seemed as though things could be seen just lurking in the corner of one's peripheral vision, but quickly snapping to get a look at them would reveal nothing there at all. The Warp Miasma surrounded Damnatus in a 10 meter diameter, which now began to cover both fighters. Before much in the way of reactions could occur, though, the sorcerer's right hand moved again, grabbing a hold of a coil of brown rope that was hooked to the other side of his belt, next to two others. Raising it up before him, right arm fully extended and pointed at the back of Sol, Damnatus once again began to invoke to Tongue of Daemons.

"Hrr-k'n'ial Tzal'm"

Blood vessels exploded in his lips, causing spurts of the stuff to spurt of them viciously. He even felt a false tooth crack and fall apart in his mouth, this time. At the same time, the coil of rope almost immediately dissolved into dust, accompanied by luminous bursts of color. What happened next would make the pain worth it.

Dante Decker Wrote:

Sols right fist, still in a boxers stance lifted his fist and Brought it down on the back of the mans head -

But not before an attempt was made to stop it by something large, slimy and powerful. The air around Sol had begun to shimmer even further in particular spots; before long, sickly tentacles burst out from each of them at alarming velocities. Each tentacle was different from the other - some had sucking mouths instead of the normal suction cups, others had eyes blinking all over them, others bled profusely all over the place. There were 5 in total, with 4 attempting to go for each appendage and the 5th to wrap around the waist of Sol. Damnatus had dubbed this spell "Eldritch Grasp", for the tentacles were not real at all - they were coagulated Warp energy materialized into realspace. Since the psyker had cast Warp Miasma before this spell, Sol would find himself immobilized (if caught by them, that is) for an even longer period before the Aethyric energy could no longer remain in reality and dissipate.

With no more time to perform any other action, Damnatus quickly about-faced and made his way to the edge of the grim arena. As he stalked out, he felt patches of skin beginning to warp and burst, giving birth to writhing things just beneath his clothing. He winced, annoyed by the pain of the mini-tentacles squirming on him. At least it would be easy to remove them later.

His part had been performed. The stimuli had been applied - thoroughly. It would now be time to see how both specimen reacted to such things.

Malefic Codex: Potentia Majoris Wrote:

Warp Miasma: A rather dangerous ability, for it is one that brings the unreality that is the Warp closer to existence. Once used, the air begins to shift oddly 20 meters around Damnatus. Odd lights flicker in and out of existence and unusual colours filter into eyesight. The effect is subtle but somewhat nauseating and disturbing. The use of this spell is to allow the Warp Sorcerer access to his most potent abilities, as well as strengthening some lesser ones. Of course, by weakening the veil between realspace and the Warp, Damnatus is subject to even more mutations brought on by his own abilities, thus making him reluctant to use it often. Warp Miasma eventually filters out of existence, but not before a number of things can be accomplished beforehand (4 turns until dissipation).

• Components: Reagent, Somatic, Verbal – A handful of Warpstone dust is thrown to the right of the Sorcerer, followed with an invocating in the Tongue of Daemons, only for it to ominously shift to the left in the air, despite what winds might be opposing it. This process is not a long one, making it somewhat easy for Damnatus to prepare for his more potent spells (1/2 turn cast time). Damnatus has enough dust for 10 uses of the spell (entire tournament).

Malefic Codex: Potentia Minoris Wrote:

Eldritch Grasp Understanding the necessity of ensuring his victims remain still long enough for him to strike them down with his occult powers, Damnatus developed a spell to remedy such an issue. Calling forth malleable Warp energy, small rifts to the place begin to tear open in the air around an opponent. Tentacles and tendrils then shoot out of the portals and attempt to wrap around the foe’s limbs and hold them in place. They can be cut through by weapons, but magically-infused ones have much better success than those that do not. Also, stronger enemies can simply tear them apart after prolonged struggles. If Warp Miasma has been cast beforehand, the tentacles will remain longer in realspace before dissipating into nothingness (1 turn hold; 2 turn hold if Warp Miasma present). Tentacle mutations are the most common form of malady stricken upon Damnatus if he is not careful with this ability.

• Components: Reagent, Somatic, Verbal, Special (optional) – Requiring a coil of rope as a focus item, Eldritch Grasp involves raising the cord up into the air with Damnatus’ right hand and focusing on them for a short while uttering a few words in the Tongue of Daemons (1/2 turn cast time). Damnatus has 3 coils at his disposal, per round.

Shortly after...

Joseph was sitting on the hood of the General Lee replica, and generally seething. He had set his devices trying to figure out the best way to deal with these guys. Versatility would be key, so he prepped fire for his mainhaind and light for his off. He had a feeling he'd need the force backpack just in case. Something gave him the feeling that this would be short but particularly difficult.

A thought bolstered when Allison's opponent seemingly turned to some sort of titty demon. Then there was that all familar shudder of someone doing something stupid with magic.

A sssssssshhhhhppppppp boom and Damnatus had arrived.

Joseph was relatively quiet as this did the opposite of impress him. Sure he had make a stupid enterance himself, but that was almost expected. It was for show, it was for the fans, it was to put a smile on people's face. What Damnatus had done, well, that was something Joseph thought meant one thing: "I'm better to you and I want you to know it". He balled his fists and then stretchered his fingers out in his metal gloves. A pointless display of magic, tipping his hand early. Great. Just the kind of person Joseph wanted to go up again. Then came the striker that sealed the deal. This guy had an attitude problem. He'd just have to wait until a decent amount after the striker, not wanting it to be confused for strikering a striker. He'd have to wait to start the next match.

And now. That should be good. Joseph pushed up off the car and began to make his way towards the warp socerer.

"Hey." Joseph spoke up a decent distance away, "Nice little trick you have there. But it would burn[/b]."

His machine picked up on his inflection and on his movement. He was casualy holding his arm to his side, palm away from Damnatus. He wasn't making any offensive gestures, slowly his hand was filling with a ball of dark goop. He didn't want Damnatus to notice until it had built up quite a bit.

"Same with the entrance." He wasn't exactly speaking in a friendly tone. Too much aggression and Damnatus would be on his guard, too little and he'd tip his hand, "Now I'm guessing your the magic sort, which makes you feel right at home here. Hell, I'd guess she is too. The other guy I had some doubts about since you jumped in and... Well, he doesn't look like he has the patience for the stuff."

He grinned a bit. He could feel the tension of the ball of goop reaching the most it could. This was going to take persimmon, as Joseph subscribed to the fight flashy with flashy. Moving as quickly as possible he flipped his wrist and gave a big underhand huck of the orb, sending it sailing through the air and oddly enough right over Damnatus' head. The spark of course caught it and set the ball aflame. Then he made the familiar fingergun and tried to trail it through the air.

"Shoot, shoot, shoot."

Energy arced through the air and pierced through the orb, shattering the sphere of goop and tearing it to shreds. In essence a rain of fire would be falling down on Damnatus. Little bits of goop would fall, stick, and burn. If everyone insisted on going through the fire, Joseph would goddamn let them.

s**t was on.

Diagnostics_

[i]BAT 87% [^0% V13%]_

VIT Norm_

M/O/B Fire/Light/Force_

1/17_

Sol had him, really had him right where he’d wanted him, things were looking up.

Quote: "Kzz`xykt-gal."

Typical, things were going well and some ****** has to ruin it by dragging out the magical words. Worse then that they didn’t even rhyme. They kind of sounded like Damnatus was trying to clear his throat, or speak Yiddish or something. The suddenly mystical color and light changes didn’t exactly help improve Sols opinion of the situation either but he tried not to let it distract him from driving his fist through the back of this ****** skull…

…Err or he would have, if something wet and slimy and altogether inappropriate hadn’t suddenly found its way into real space and wrapped around his right wrist. Well that was unexpected, Sol suddenly became very interested in his surroundings and was immediately aware that he was no longer alone with his surroundings.

Four other tentacles had apparently decided for the same contract, originating from several floating portal Sol pulled hard on the one surrounding his right wrist, while stomping down on two lower tentacle that had apparently decided his ankles looked tasty. This sadly did little to keep him focused on the fight at hand however as Nikolai swooped around to smash into Sols right side. Were Sol less of a fit man and dually protected by the muscles found there, he probably would have easily cracked a rib* He was blessed however that the biter had apparently forgotten about the big chunk of missing flesh on the other side of his ribcage, which would have been quite a bit more painful. Sols body recoil back, his wrist being held somewhat in place by the tentacle, keeping him upright even though his instinct was to double over.

It was a blessing in disguise though as being held up gave him the ability to take at least some stock of the situation, and as Nikolai froze at the completion of his strike he gave Sol almost as good a strike as the one he had been robbed of just moments ago. Sol stamped onto of one of the ankle biting tentacles a second time and pirouetted on the now slick ground bringing his knee up his calf folded back , then snapped his hips, the things stopping accelerating the calf out at high speed to slam the steel toe of his boot into the head of the seemingly unshakable mini-golf man. Sadly after his leg cam back from the strike he didn’t have the awareness to catch the second ankle biter latch onto the back of his boot, it wasn’t really painful the teeth sunk deeply enough into the leather to hold tight onto the boot.

Sol watched as Nikolai would recover, he had no doubt the man would recover and actually he wanted him to, that kick to the temple wasn’t enough, he wanted this man to bleed from every orifice Sol reached out and grabbed one of the other Tentacles right behind its toothy sucker end and held onto it using it to steady himself and it tried to wrap itself around his wrist, for the moment Sol let it try, he had an idea and it might just become useful. With all his hands or feet either busy or too far away to do anything here wasn’t much he could do to prevent the tentacle from wrapping around his waist, it did however cover up the cut the man had made earlier, which might come in handy, but no He wait and watched as Nikolai Circled, Sol immobilized, at least technically speaking and waiting for him to close in, apparently he sought to make a meal out of him. With his left hand resisting the slithering tentacles entrapment his upper arm was in a perfect position for Nikolai to try and take a bite, Sol kind of smiled as Nikolai opened his freaky mouth open for a bit then leaned forward casually.

Far far too casually for someone about to eat the flesh of another human being, but then there was at least some question of that in Sols mind. Back to the present however, as Nikolai leaned in Sol intentionally let go of left hand tentacle falling to his side, pushed off with free right leg and altogether body slammed his head into Nikolai’s, the tentacles helping to keep the man from falling bodily to the ground, but none the less allowing him enough motion to get his shoulder out of the way as Sols bony forehead** once again struck out towards Nikolai.

No ********, I aint going down like this.

Wrote:

• Tonka Tough:

Excellent muscle tone, training and a general concern about his health have given him enough overall mass sufficient to somewhat resist the assaults of his enemies. Though this does not allow him to ignore any injury it certainly does help him work through the pain of successive hits. Combined with enough experience to know how to ‘roll with the punches’ as they say, he can be a tough sucker to bring down. This really only concerns punches kicks and blunt instrument strikes however as his well defined muscle structure makes him just as vulnerable (if not more) to cuts and stabs as anyone else.

Wrote:

• Hard Head.

Perhaps a dual meaning; Sol has taken enough hits to his head that he has developed an exceptionally bony forehead. Generally its not advisable to attempt to head butt Sol as most people tend to rebound off him like hitting a brick wall, but something’s just have to be learned through experience I suppose. This is not to say strikes to his forehead aren’t going to effect, him quite the opposite really as though the bony nature helps protect him somewhat it still is quite annoying to the experienced body guard.

[Tentacles 1 of 2]

((Corrected post count error))

Just killing time…

Hanging around, supported by the tentacles of some otherworldly beast while being fed on by some deranged man in a bad suit, yep it was just another day in the office at Alpha through Epsilon corporation.

Sol had regretted many things in his life; not asking for extra cheese on his baconator, bringing extra gum on long assignments, but not bringing along his knives to fight with evil tentacle monster summoning assholes really has to rank up there on the regret-o-meter. Sol had a somewhat bored look on his face as Nikolai had paced him earlier, now he’d leaned In Sol had done his thing and in return Sol was sans bit of flesh on his left arm. Truly this was beginning to suck. His upper arm was barely damaged but you can really ignore such a bite, certainly sol couldn’t.

Why did it always have to be the left arm?

Sols knee (or is that elbow) jerk reaction was to try and slam the elbow into the mans face shortly after the bite, he didn’t hold high hopes of it hitting however, it was merely an attempt to get the damn biter back, Sol was stalling for time at this point, he didn’t know how long he’d be here and so was trying to consider his options. He Stamped down hard on the end of the tentacle that had sunk it teeth into the heel of his right boot as Nikolai would step back, Sol was trapped prey sure, but shouldn’t that make Nikolai all the more cautious? Apparently not as Nikolai came right in towards the man and began to run the edge of the shield along his chest leaving a visible line of red down his chest cutting the ree-shirt in half as he did so the two halves essentially falling away as a exceedingly complex tattoo pattern ran from his shoulder to shoulder and all down his back, the bright red ink glowing in the dimness of cemetery, Sol let him and simply smiled as he did so.

“My turn…”

Sols now free Right light shot out at the exposed man right leg right where the thigh meets the hit, driving the steel toed boot hard and deep in a well timed chasse bas, being right at groin level it was a fairly sensitive part of the body while not being the mans actual private parts, beyond that it was a fairly weak point all things considered on the massive thigh bone and some exceptionally strong Savate practitioners had broken many an opponents legs with just such a strike. Was that what sol was shooting for? No, Sol was simply seeking to get a bit of space from that shield, but that didn’t mean it was any less effective a choice.

Dropping his weight down hard, Sol grabbed hard onto the tentacle supporting his right arm and fell back, fully supported by the waist tentacle he rebounded fairly easily but not before sickening -SPLOSCH- would echo across the grave yard. The heavily muscled tentacle breaking free from the rest of it much like a lizards tail might but much more disgusting blood and otherworldly ooze dripping from the broken end.

Sol wasn’t about to waist the opportunity and swung it once over his head before bringing it in and against the mans head. Which he hoped had been exposed by his earlier strike to his leg. Sol then turned his attention to trying to unwind the waist tentacle, this would probably have been a mistake since the next sound he heard instantly brought his attention back to his opponent

Psychofish Wrote:

"--HRRGRP."

Oh crap…

The resulting Willy-Wonka tunnel of crap that came spewing at him was surprisingly beautiful but at the same time it was still crap, and believing it far Sol crouched and brought up his right chain covered arm to try and deflect what he could from his face and upper torso. The acid instantly began eating away at the aluminum chains wrapped there, than though the wool arm sock wouldn’t neutralize the acid they would at least slow it down somewhat.. Sols T-shirt, what was left of it had essentially been completely destroyed, the acid charing the fabric before it simply fell away from his skin. Some of Sols nice red hair had been bleached white by the attack but his face for the most part had been protected, his upper chest however began to burn like hell. Lucky for him it seemed to burn the tentacle about as much as it did him, and Sol was let to fall to the ground into a crouching position his back in full view to the man began to crackle as arcs of electricity jumped from point to point on the elaborate tattoo pattern on his back. The wound on his chest was no cauterized but he knew this was only the beginning, it would hurt more later when he wasn’t running on adrenaline, the crash after this high was going to suck…

He felt a second wind come through him, energy that wasn’t there before ran through his blood as if someone was pumping him with energy, he looked up and grinned his hair now a contrast or red and white streaks blood still flowing from his nose and Sol began to laugh. He was free and damn the consequences he was going to hurt this man worse than Sol could even imagine.

Break him, hurt him kill him his blood called, it echoed in him, the energy driving him Sol Brought his right leg up into a runners position and Charged the man looking to tackle him body wise through a row of tombstones that flanked him, He was going to send them and the mans head sliding into each and every one of them in time and then he’d be ready for more. This time thing Sol wasn’t going to pull any punches, hed have to kill this guy before he showed any weakness.

Quote:

• Overcharge

A blessing given to him by a Forest Shaman after the death of his last employer, the extensive tattoo across his back runs up both upper arms and connects over his spine in a seemingly random set of swirls and angular patterns that are actually the path of a single line that weaves its way from one side of his body to other. When hidden or covered, for whatever reason, the tattoo goes inactive and is unable to assist Sol. Only when worn uncovered and with pride does it offer a chance to bless him by feeding off ambient magical energy around him.

Mechanics: Every time a player (friend or foe) casts an external spell (that is; directed at another player and not themselves) Sol has a chance to absorb some of the spells energy. When a spell is cast within five meters of him a d4 is rolled, this roll determines how many points of energy he his able to absorb from that spell., this does not dampen the nearby spell in anyway nor does it protect him from the spells effect. it merely allows him to feed off the ambient magic disturbed by the effect. For every point the successfully absorbs he gains one post with the Overcharge blessing, at the end of each post he consumes one point reducing the amount of energy in the tattoo.

Every turn that he benefits from the Overcharge ability (a maximum of four posts) he gains a second simple action per post, by ‘simple’ I mean a second jab, a second short kick within the same amount of time. This does not allow him to accomplish something that would require dedicated concentration or fine adjustment merely the ability to fit another reactionary effect into the same time table. These effects are block able or counter able as any other attack, and he is not moving at speed that would make such attacks either hard to see or respond to.

[Tentacles 2 of 2]

((edited in post number))

Descant felt like she should say something.

Really, here was this man who just... appeared with one of the flashiest magical entrances she'd ever seen. And it wasn't just flashy and pretty, but it was also graphical and very.... insane. Was that a proper descriptor? It had to be, because it was the only way she could describe pretty grass and things growing, only to sprout eyeballs.

EYEBALLS, man.

She was still just... staring at Damnatus when she asked about them. It was just as well, because the man immediately left to go help a teammate. Well, whenever Damnatus rejoined the sideline area, he would find Descant clapping quite enthusiastically.

The black-and-white closeup of that man looking very pleased and clapping would work here, but SOMEONE was too lazy to search for it.

"I want to be YOUR friend."

Things can change rather quickly sometimes. Rules of engagement, opinions, and most importantly plans. Joseph's plan involved moving into the cover rich graveyard where he could take potshots as he pleased and hope that the enemies potshots couldn't do much to rock. That plan went to hell the moment it turned out rock was no issue for Damnatus, who seemed to decide that "burst on through" would be the best plan of action. It's lucky for Joseph that it's rather easy to see a torrent of energy travel through the ground like a hungry shark, and it's also fortunate that it's easy to know what that kind of ground attack can do to a gravestone. Like the dust and bones it was uprooting it did the same. He thought he was thinking rather quickly when he dove off to one side to avoid the crushing cover, however the unlucky thing for Joseph was that he didn't know that these attacks didn't stop at force.

The warp blast caught him unaware, feeling the searing force impact his side and shoulder and causing what once was a dodge roll to become more an uncontrollable roll. As predicted he hit another of the haphazardly arranged tombstones and ended his journey with a hiss of pain as his back slammed against stone. From that he ached all over, and as someone who had been hit by more than their fair share of spells he had a feeling that something bad had just happened. Perhaps because his flesh was crawling, not felt like it, but literally crawling. He pulled himself up and looked to his arm and shoulder to survey the damage. Clothing torn from the tumble and spell, a given, it least it allowed him to see what... Oh great. The warp had caused small tendrils to sprout along Joseph's shoulder line. That wasn't what bothered him, he had done tentacles before, tentacles were cool, his best friend was a tentacle. It was more the long lines of raised flesh, like veins where they weren't supposed to be, that bothered him. Mainly because they were moving, squirming under a layer of dermis and sailing on a sea of muscle. The pain alternated between the squirming lines feeling too tight, and feeling like they were going to burst out from under his flesh.

Body horror, the idea that what is you could turn against you. Most people would scream, Joseph gave a cough of pain and pulled himself off the ground by pushing up the gravestone. He'd seen worse, Agrippina had been worse. Considering the shape of his opponent's body though, it was likely so had he.

"Honor." Joseph half spat the word as he got back to his feet and in spite of a bit of wobblyness pointed his fingergun at Damnatus. This guy had tricks and Joseph would be dammed if he was going to tip his hand early. "Fight on even terms. Bang. Fight to some sort of abstract ideal. Bang. Fight exactly as predicted. Expect the same thing from who you face."

As he spoke he took the same sort of casual walk towards that Damnatus had decided on. Joseph was quickly getting a few ideas about this guy, mainly that from the few glances he got that he was hurting a bit after that spell himself. Watch a bit more, maybe this spell slinger would do just as much damage to himself as he could to Joseph. Maybe, funny as it may sound, it was a better plan to close the distance in this case. So he punctuated his steps with two shots at Damnatus' easy to hit areas. These had a better chance of hitting square in the chest than the wild fire he did earlier, but were still from his off hand.

He gave a few cursory glances around him. Closer, he needed to keep this guy at arms length.

"Sounds like a great way to lose to me." He smiled and stretched the fingers on his right hand to distract from the squirming pain under his skin, all the while an idle spark darted along the glove, "Which seems horribly counterintuitive to me. Bang."

He blatantly missed with his last shot, a twitch that caused he bolt to fly passed Damnatus and into the arm of an angelic looking statue gingerly holding a globe of some sort. Joseph didn't seem too upset by the shot. This was a civil discussion after all.

Just with warp horrors and laser beams.

Diagnostics_

BAT 85% [^2% V3%]_

VIT Irregular_

M/O/B Air /Light/Force_

3/17_

The angels were all wrong for a knee to the face. Since Lacey had been squating, her left arm parallel to the ground and her right askew from the left. So when she pushed her arms forward and up for that handle to Alison's face, it helped protect her own. The left knee would be meeting Lacey's left claw. Which would be perfectly fine with Lacey. Not only would it help dislodge her forearm from the halberd's blade, but she'd grab onto the woman's, just for a little bit. No damage would be done from the sharp claws, Lacey would leave that to the acid like substance the claws naturally produced. The pain in her should would become worse, almost unbearable.

Quote: xxxxxxxAcid

• Lacey's demon claws (from the fingertips to wrists) are covered in a acid similar to that of hydrochloric acid (a diluted form). The pores in the claws naturally secrete the acid like a frog secretes the poisons from their pores.

Pros - Corrodes metals at a slow rate.

• Causes second degree burns on skin.

• Begins replenishing immediately, but is not completely replenished for about 20 seconds.

Cons - Lacey herself is not immune to the acid, only the demon possessing her is. If her skin gets in contact with the acid it will be effected normally, but any parts caused by the possession (her forearms, when transformed and spikes on her back) are not effected.

-Does less damage while replenishing.

The grad might set the girl off balance, but that was not Lacey's intention. She'd make one last attempt at a shove with the halberd back towards it's owner, before letting go of the tip completely and rolling towards her right. She'd place her right hand on the ground, swing her left leg around so her back was facing her opponent, but only for a second, before turning back around and standing.

7/17

To say that Nikolai was "circling" or "taking his time" was to mistake the man's entirely. He wasn't rushing, with the pressure off, but it wasn't to say that he was lolligagging about or giving Sol any real time to recover. It was a single step back, and none forward again, as he chewed the meat to nothing, and not a tortuous, teasing line down the torso, but a slash by consequence more than by intention as he relocated the shield from atop the man's shoulders down to his legs. No, Nikolai might have been acting too casual for any man to go about dissecting or eating another, but it wasn't a morning-coffee casualty. It was quick. Efficient. Uncaring, and just short of precise. A sailor working a boat. A wolf tearing meat from a corpse.

Professional, almost.

Once upon a time Nikolai's profession likely had been beating people, cutting them up, and disposing of them.

Now he simply ate them as well.

Not to say that the bodyguard was helpless, but mostly that, well, he was being restrained at most of his limbs after all. He was simply not being cut a lot of slack. He'd move to try and get his leg out to move and raise it as Nikolai's shield came down-

And with a meaty thunk, Nikolai would grunt as he slammed the shield's rim into Sol's upper thigh as the boot struck his own leg, lightening the blow on his hip, but still forcing him to spread his weight out and grimace in pain as he bent over, drawing up the power-

-crick!-

Nikolai grunted and snorted blood as the fist came from the opposite direction he'd been expecting it to. He was in a great position to see it coming as Sol first had to tear it loose, but none the less it had caught his nose and broken it for what was clearly far from the first time.

And hell burst from his throat, scorching his throat painfully as it did, feeling the passage swell slightly, vocal chords going tight as he rasped a breath from his mouth, sucking in air as the torrent was done, all the nastier for the power that swelled into it from the air of the land around them.

Sol seemed very calm for a man that had been subjected to so much painful bodily harm while strung up, then covered in burning things, even if the shield of his arm(s) would stop most of the corrosive energy touching them from licking around, clinging where it fell. He was still alive. Still fighting. Almost spitefully calm. The same attitude the brute had been taking. And now he was free again. Drawing himself up to fight while he sizzled. Crackling with MORE energy. Not just the warp energy Nikolai had scorched his body with. New power. Power that he hadn't been displaying earlier, that Nikolai smelled every bit as clear as the blood that now half-filled his nostrils. Magic. Energy that he'd been greedily hiding from the Hunger now tweaked its nose.

It was an impressive sight. An encouraging testament to what guts and discipline could do to bring man to the face of the monsters and powers that so arrogantly sat like kings upon Gaia, and take him away in one piece.

But Nikolai wasn't looking at an impressive peer. He wasn't looking at a hero. Sol was a piece of meat that refused to wear down or die. And it was really beginning to make what was left of him angry. His meal wasn't supposed to be after his throat. It was supposed to be pissing itself by now. But it wanted his blood. He wanted it's blood. Blood. Blood. They'd rip it out of each other until it stopped coming.

[[Spit It Out - Slipknot]](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTAGhT7yrCI)

Sol looked up, shooting a grin, bloody, ragged face.

Nikolai glared back, teeth drawn back in a silent snarl, bald head practically painted for war between the warping tattoos and blood everywhere.

They hated each other like hell at that moment, and their thoughts were more alike than they would have believed.

Save the eating part, of course.

So similar, that almost at once each man reacted to the other's motions to ready themselves, and from just beyond striking range of each other, Sol and Nikolai both threw all their weight, their muscle, a quarter ton of angry men slamming against each other with legs thrown back furrowing into the earth, each determined to slam the other apart. And in the initial contact, Sol won. Nikolai's kicked leg faltered and after the slam, if the bodyguard kept pushing, Nikolai would find his feet shoving into the earth and tearing up grass as he slid backward.

But even that wouldn't come without a cost.

Drakrand had been raised between them already when he'd blown the warp bile all across Sol, and Nikolai hadn't bothered to lower it. Sol wouldn't hit a meat torso, but the domed surface of the shield. Nikolai braced his body behind it, both hands to the back, holding it ahead. Like an additional limb he could almost feel the contact through the shield, feel the energy run across it as he attempted to siphon what Sol hadn't burnt away yet out of him. Tear it out. Like he'd been trying to sink his own teeth into that flesh again Drakrand's fangs, the ring at the edge and the one circling the center of the domed guard would flick around, turning the shield's surface into a spiked field, a maw filled with fangs far more numerous than Nikolai's, if without his deadly jaw behind them.

If they could taste that sweet blood there might be even more to take from him.

Gluttony Wrote:

Gluttony Wrote:

Drakrand Wrote:

• Flesh and Blood- Drakrand has a link to Nikolai, and while not sentient or capable of many actions, can be commanded by him as long as they are in contact. This does not require flesh-on-flesh touch, and Drakrand can be commanded while worn on an arm or slung over his back. Powers requiring contact only function for Nikolai, though others may use the shield normally.
• [Contact] Touching a creature or object with Drakrand may be treated as laying a hand on it for purposes of abilities requiring it.

[7/17]

Sol barely felt the energy leave him in fact he rarely felt the energy do anything but come into him. It was a pleasant invigorating feeling but it always seemed to fade sometimes quicker, sometimes slower, in this case he’d simply assumed it was the former. Nikolai would drink all the energy up from Sols tattoo, as much as he cared to anyways, Sol had no control over it, never did, the blessing was just that a blessing, but purely out of his control.

Sol could care less, the hate that burned in him for this monster was enough to dive him onwards, flood flowing freely from his body his acid splattered torso pressed against Nikolai’s shield as they came to the cinch, Sol let it bleed, his mind remembered his fight with Izette a flashback to their fight not but a few days ago, the rage she had filled him with was nothing. That was anger, frustration at her insolence, and disrespect. This was different, there was no bad blood to bleed out, but Sol was intent on one thing, this monster was going to bleed or at the very least he would silence that horrible maw of his.

Blood, acid, and sweat flowed between them both of them living reminders that sometimes monsters came in all forms and here in the human equivalent of two moose fighting they were at an impasse, at least somewhat, sure Sol could have tried to overpower the man and force him down, but that would have been on Nikolai’s terms, something Sol was not about to succumb to.

Nikolai had probably forgotten about something by this point, Sol certainly hadn’t but with most of his body previously occupied it had been a limited utility that little bit of chain that had been hanging from his left arm was swung up as Sol used his chest to press against the man keeping him in the cinch forcing his shield arm against his chest as her swung the chain around the mid level of the man and caught it on the other side with his right hand sliding it up the mans back in one smooth motion. The chain coming to a stop around the back of the mans neck so that it caught right at the base of the skull as he yanked with his arms to force the shield tight against Nikolais body with his chest as he drew his own head in for another head butt.

******** this guy, he was going get every strike into this guys brain case he could.

That wasn’t the point of it all though, Sols chain was there for another reason, letting off the pressure from Nikolais shield slightly in the instant after the head butt Sol blinked his eyes to readjust his vision then bent his legs slightly and pulled the chain on both end to tuck his arms under the opposite arm pit. The resulting choke would land low just over the mans adams apple well below his chin and free of those horrible jaws of his. This wasn’t some ‘oh his arms are strong kind of choke’ this was the unforgiving caress of aluminum encircling his neck and forcing the pressure of the crossing chains right onto his larynx and well under his chin to keep those fanged teeth at bay.

Sol, intent on bringing the hurt dropped his weight quickly downwards, resisting the pull would probably crush the mans windpipe even if he did have the neck of gods, this was the equivalent of hanging Nikolai while he was still standing., however following him downwards meant he was now on Sols terms Something Sol fully intended to take advantage of.

This was Alison's chance. Lacey had come within range, stepping up to take a punch to her face. She was still a little shakey from that kick earlier, and whatever the hell had upset her system. Alison really wanted to avoid any contact with her head, burny stuff aside.

She yanked herself backwards, finding good solid footing on a sunken gravestone, and spun the shaft with a red flicker of blood droplets, bringing the pole solidly down on Lacey's severely wounded shoulder with another. It could have been the blade, but with the other woman advancing at the same time, the blade over-reached by just a hair.

Then, if contact was made, Alison would use the opportunity to lash out with her foot again, taking full advantage of the close quarters, rather then relying completely on the tool she carried. It may end up being open air, but the intent might be enough to drive Lacey back on the run once again, where the cold calculations could again cut into and damage the other woman.

He could have gloated at the satisfying sensation of taking, consuming, power bubbling from the hunger as he let it taste the power and held onto the rest, temptation, urging it to draw up its strength, create a hole in reality to feed through. The power coursed through him. But Nikolai was for once too busy to gloat. More important things. More important blood. Bleed him. Bleed him now.

Now.

"MINE. NOW."

He rasped.

The shield pressed into Nikolai's shoulder and the supporting hand as Sol leaned himself dead against it. Nikolai's resistance waned as his brows knotted, letting the other man slide him back slightly, feet no longer digging in, but simply sliding on the earth. Didn't matter. Start the hunt. Bleed the prey. The fangs were out. At least some had to be buried into flesh, with the man throwing his torso against him. The inner ring, mostly likely, the outer ring probably wouldn't have so much luck. Nikolai let himself slowly resist less and less as he focused that power in one direction, like a sink hole. It was easier than ever.

He wasn't just putting the power out. The earth around him practically rang with latent power that was more than happy to let itself be sucked in, lending to the sinkhole he was creating, piling it all in one place, tugging and twisting.

It should have taken much longer. But it seemed to build half on its own.

"MONIPPLE."

That's right. With Sol's chest bared, Nikolai had finally gotten some more creative ideas.

He had something to call him now.

The chain slung its way around his neck, and his brows tightened. Let the top fangs drop again, not to impale himself, as Nikolai gave further, reaching up to grab the chain with his right hand, shield working entirely on his weight and left arm, shoved tight back against its shoulder. The chain ripped into skin, bruising as it yanked him in and he slung his head forward with it.

--KRACK--

Nikolai contributed to the head butt- making it harder, making sure it hit in the right place on his skull, where it would rattle him the least. b*****d would have done the same. No blood. Pain for both. Bleeding each other out. But of course, Sol hadn't taken nearly so much pounding to his head prior to it.

"MEAT. BAG."

******** stars. The flicked and danced away quickly, but everything blurred again, his vision and hearing pounding, whole head pain as the previous damage resurfaced. That was alright. He wouldn't need them long.

Nikolai let his body turn, facing front as he gasped and made choking sound in the air. The chain was tightening, and he fought it, but much less than he could have, shield jamming itself against his chest. Very awkward position for it. His right hand was clenched around the chain now, clenching his arm and pulling to give himself some slack. Metal tightened hard around the sides of his throat, but he kept it from pressing on the front with his efforts, limiting his air a bit without cutting it off entirely.

He braced, shoving a leg between Sol's, leaning his weight slightly back until the chain tight into his hand and shoved it against his throat, for just a second. Not stopping the bodyguard's fall, but slowing it. Just a second. All the time he needed.

"HHRAKK."

Nikolai opened his mouth wide, and released the power. It expanded, bursting out into the dark energy around-

And vanished, sinking in again.

Color vanished.

Nikolai let himself fall forward, rattling a breath in through his mouth as the fall let just enough slack to keep the hand from crushing his windpipe just like the chain would have without it, leaving a wider, lighter bruise on the front of his throat to complement the dark reddish line where the chain dug in around the rest of his neck. Only... they were turning black. In under a second, Nikolai's blood covered, darkened lips turned black, and then color seemed to drain from his face and all the world, a harsh, overshadowed black and white film.

He slipped forward.

Shapes and dull mimicries of color swirled inward, twisting, tugging things that should have been out of sight swirling together into Nikolai and Sol's eyes. The whole world was warping, going mad, spinning vortex as shapes vanish and black crept in at the corners of their vision, closing in.

The last things Sol would see were Nikolai's contorted, snarling face, and the rattling fangs on the shield as the two tumbled to the ground just like he'd wanted.

Sight vanished.

And they fell, into darkness.

Gluttony Wrote:

• Feast of Eyes [Contact|Sate: 3] Maintaining contact with Drakrand for a turn, Nikolai begins to focus, unable to use any of his activated abilities for the course of this turn or take especially strenuous actions. If he is still in contact with Drakrand and on his feet at the beginning of his next turn, the Feast of Eyes begins. Nikolai opens his mouth and like a nightmare, all the light within up to a 30 foot radius is devoured between himself and Drakrand, plunging himself and his foe into utter lightlessness, to the point of preventing sources of light from penetrating this darkness or spreading within it further than a foot. Lightless, rather than simply very dark, this surpresses most alternative visions as well, save thermal or magical based. Though rendered near blind and hidden from the outside, Nikolai and any others in the area can move and act normally, including exiting if they luck upon its edge. The darkness remains stationary even if Nikolai moves. From when Feast of Eyes activates it lasts through 2 turns of posts before fading to dimness. Nikolai can expend 1 additional charge per turn at any time, including the initial casting, to lengthen the effect by 1 turn per charge.

[Feast of Eyes begins: Terrain bonus quickened cast]

[Feast of Eyes: 2 Turns remaining]

[8/17]

Ahhh, the sweet sound of silence.

Or mostly silence, anyway.

It's not that Damnatus did not enjoy their gentlemanly grim discussion earlier - no, he just did not care for being subjected to repeated PEW BANG BLAMS from Joseph's choice of magic medium. And, it seemed his experiment had proved the theory of the technology requiring a vocal command; for as he rapidly advanced upon the man, his muffled cries and the distinct lack of magic lasers flying from his finger revealed all too well the dire straits he had been thrust into. The sorcerer did not blame the captain's seemingly-panicked nature, for it was a wholly natural reaction when faced with the kind of horror the Warp could subject to an individual.

Unfortunately for Joseph, many more horrors would rear their proverbial heads before their fight came to an end.

Thump

The distance continued to close - just a hair above 2 1/2 meters. Damnatus decided it was finally time to play his next hand at this juncture. The sorcerer's left arm began pulling back and up, followed by the elbow rolling and causing the forearm to travel up - the beginning of a whipping-like motion. All the while, the perfect globe of mercury was still clutched tight in his grip. His focus was dead center, aiming to deliver the coming assault right there.

Thump

His left came down upon the stale earth, bringing him just a bit over 1 meter away from Joseph. The next step had come down further to his right, bringing it more to his front, as if to swing something. To further suggest this, his arm had begun to finish its poised whipping-motion.

However, before that could go any further, Damnatus realized he had made a very foolish mistake.

With the muted Joseph giving him some devil horns with his left, followed by his right beginning to press something upon the technological gauntlet, it was obvious that the man had a Plan B.

s**t!

Of course there was always a Plan B. Well, at least with anyone who thought similarly as himself - and this man obviously had some similar processes. Manipulation, deceit and trickery were all tools of the trade, and for as much as Damnatus had manipulated the businessman into confirming that vocals were a major part of his executions, he too had been tricked into thinking he solely relied upon them. There was absolutely no time to dodge or block whatever would come from the attack, so there was only thing he could do.

Continue, just as planned.

"SSSSSSSSHHHHHHRRRRREEEAAAAAAUUUUGGGHHHHHHHHH~"

For the second time in this tournament, Vicissitude had been granted to see the light of day. The daemon weapon morphed out of the prismatic sphere in the sorcerer's hand, generating almost instantly into the 45" long b*****d sword. Its birth-howl would announce it in all of its terror, letting its victims know of the unending, excruciating change that was to come, but letting them know far too late to save themselves. Even if Joseph had plans to retaliate against Damnatus, there would be little to stop the vicious weapon. The whipping motion served to bring the blade down, in a diagonal slash from the enemy leader's upper right shoulder and down to his right waist - a move that could have resulted in potential disemboweling. Instead, the blade would come down on Joseph's obstructing right arm, just above the elbow and into the meat of it. If it hit, it would strike somewhere below the Center of Percussion, sadly - still, even a one-handed strike towards the forte of the blade would inflict severe harm upon the appendage. It would not be enough to sever the thing (one handed strikes rarely did such a thing), but the mutations that would follow such a strike would serve well enough.

Just as Vicissitude would hack into the opponent, he would discharge a set of PEW PEW electric lasers.

BZZZZZZT!

"HNNNNUGH!"

While the success of Damnatus' sword strike was up in the air, Joseph's attack was bringing him down to the ground. The sorcerer's forward momentum carried his temporarily-paralyzed form forward and right into the ground - hard. The impact jarred him heavily, but he was too busy twitching from the taser attack to really do anything about his collapse. It would take a good bit to recover from the attack, meaning he'd be entirely open to a jab from the enemy from above.

However, if Vicissitude had bitten true, then he might not have been in the best of conditions to be punching things too much.

[1.5/1.5] - Vicissitude summoned

[4/4]

It was perhaps the oddest weapon clash in the tournament. Sword forged in the madness of the warp, versus a tazer arm created from a man's obsession to prove the unaltered and unpowered could survive. Just as Damnatus didn't expect a bolt of lighting to the chest, the last thing Joseph expected was a sword from nowhere. What happened to the spell-casters having staves or ritual daggers? Damnatus however was right in that the worse had yet to come. Electricity could stop your heart and burn your flesh, the warp however could do much worse.

The blade bit in just at his elbow, and even as Joseph tried to twist away there would be no reaction time and no natural defences. Joseph had to count himself lucky that Damnatus was one handing the sword and being blasted by electricity at the same time, otherwise it could have been much much worse. Still, he was cut deep and blood began to soak through his clothing... But then he felt the veiny apparition from when he was hit earlier tighten once more he knew there was something worse in store. The pain was immence and Joseph immediacy struggled against his sealed mouth to scream out in pain. Much to his suprise he head a scream other than Damnatus'...

GAH-AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH GWAH-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

If the sword hurt the oversized fanged mouth that erupted in the centre of the gash was like going to hell and back. It was what released the scream that accompanied his opponent, and immediately afterwards it lapsed into mindless gibbering. Change didn't stop there, no, change was relentless. The blood that poured from the gash itself and from between the teeth of the new mouth began to form into long tendrils. They writhed in the air before seeking out fresh flesh to pierce just under, then snake atop a lake of muscle. As they moved they dove in and out of flesh, stitching along leaving raised section and squirming red tendril in alternating pattern. Each point of this warp fuelled needle would draw more blood, blood that would immediately be assimilated to thread and spread the chaotic pattern farther and farther. Soon there was a web of these red raised lines all over Joseph's arm, onto his side, and as he rolled his neck in a futile attempt to get away the delicate blood lattice formed up his neck and the spiked ends emerged from under flesh to hook around his jaw. In a way this mutation had helped staunch the bleeding of such a cut, however the stitching of the blood tendrils were pulling the wound open, preventing any true healing and prolonging the suffering.

Joseph's arm fell limply to his side, and the mouth in the centre of the mutation continued it's cackling.

The warp was upon him and all he could do was selfishly think of what he had done. The similar effects the virus had on test subjects and the innocents in the back of his mind. Most people would feel the pressure of guilt at these thoughts, Joseph thought of but one thing: That this power was something he was fully capable of inflicting as well. There is more than one road to madness.

By the time Joseph had gotten his bearings Damnatus had fallen. Joseph was in effect without his toys as he was still summoning the force of will to try and move his right arm. He would do it. It would just take time or desperation. Instead he pivoted and wound back his leg, he'd use the one ability wired to his reflex rather than his voice. When Joseph swept forward, it would have normally been a fairly painful kick to the ribs. However the way Joseph pointed his foot and bent his knee would activate the booster in the sole of the shoe. This was normally used for double jumping as the kids called it.

Today it was to accelerate a metal foot into someone's ribs with a force indicating more energy and less room than the kicker had.

Diagnostics_

BAT 74% [^2% V0%]_

VIT Extremely Irregular_

M/O/B Air /Dark/Force_

5/17_

Meanwhile...

This location had been decidedly declared the most disturbing HoH would see this year, and by the looks of the teams that had been assigned to it, it only stood to reason that the strongest willed man be dispatched. Greg McGreggor was such a man. The supernaturally dark and creepy were his backyard, and he had boldly gone and collected data from places and things no man had dared venture before. The intrepid man was an invaluable asset to the company, and he was at it again!

A pair of excessively large binoculars peeked out of an overly large tangle of dead vines atop the graveyard wall. Upon the outside face a pair of worn combat boots dangled among the makeshift camouflage and a white backdrop whispered suspicious tales of the lack of wall to which the vines clung.

The data collected this day would go very far, so long as the intrepid soul could keep a clean pair of pants.

Even those knee deep in unreality had to admit there was one thing that was very real and very pleasurable: A satisfying crack. Joseph was very much pleased with the crack of his metal boot, though the impact that came next was the opposite of pleasant. Hoist by his own petard the power that sent Damnatus away was the power that yanked him off his feet onto his back.

"Crap!" He managed to vocalize as his lips began to reform with the same consistency as pulling a grilled cheese sandwich apart. This was a good thing! It allowed him to hiss in pain as sailing through the air pulled at the mutation's stitching. It allowed him to blurt out an inappropriate curse and choke it back when he fell right into the ground. Bruising, scrapes and burns, and he was pretty sure coming down with that force did something fierce to his tailbone.

This was no time ******** around though. Damnatus was still at the advantage considering he was rising faster, and had two functioning arms.

"Darkness." Was all Joseph said, triggering his left glove to start pumping a thin membrane full of inky black liquid. He bit his lip and reached back with his right, screaming pain shooting through his body causing that damn mouth to jabber on a little longer. He tried to use his legs as much as possible to get back to his feet. Damnatus was half up by the time Joseph was a quarter of the way up, however Joseph had a nice target and a decent amount of leverage.

With as much strength he could muster in an underhanded toss he threw the glob of darkness at the warp sorcerer. The membrane was weak and would burst easily, however so was the throw and the splatter would be minimal. Idealty Joseph wanted to cover some of Damnatus' side and facing arm with the liquid. A liquid he would find would quite handily stick to him, and worse still itself. The motions of getting up would likely have to spread it slightly, especially a slow rise like Damnatus was attempting. Joseph didn't want to deal with any two-handed blows from that sword, and this was the best he could do at the moment.

"Shift... Uhhhg... Main Light." His right hand began to shift with the magitec glow of the parts changing, practical hidden by the emminations of the warp, "That... That was highly unpleasant."

Damnatus would rise to his feet first, unless he seriously became careless when the sticky liquid was applied to him. Still Joseph wouldn't be far behind, and he would respond to Damnatus' expression with his own indignant grin. Roughed up but clearly lucid and still planning. Madness clearly hadn't taken him, at least not Damnatus' warp fuelled madness. No, Joseph's expression was one of the last man in the town, the last guard at the gate, the last surviving member of a secret brotherhood stamped out.

It said I'm still here.

Diagnostics_

BAT 69% [^2% V7%]_

VIT Extremely Irregular_

M/O/B Air>>> Light /Dark/Force_

6/17_

It called to him.

The lure. The draw. The power. It was what drew him to such a path in the first place. The path that had ruined him and everyone that he had known. He still tread the very same twisted path - a path that would lead him to a fate no man would or could contemplate. It did not matter. What occurred along that path - what the path would allow him to do - was all that mattered.

Nothing would stop him from achieving his goals. Nothing - not this man, not the rest of the tournament. No one.

A slow, sick noise began to escape past Damnatus' lips, disgustingly accompanied by ropes of spittle with his labored breathing.

Laughing.

It was a painful thing to listen to, coming from a shell of a human who knew no mirth or joy no longer. It was a twisted mockery of the emotion, filled with the raw feelings of a man with a wholly shattered mind. The psyker's grip tightened irresistibly around the leather-wrapped hilt of his weapon, eliciting rubbing groans from the two fabrics coming together. Joseph was attempting to get up too; his mouth had been freed as well, allowing him to transition into a supposed "Darkness" element. It would not save him. The businessman had forgotten an important detail as he righted himself and made preparations for another attack - he forgot that Vicissitude still possessed its malign grip upon him.

With as much force as he could muster, Damnatus snapped his left side back while pulling his respective arm as well. The result would cause the captain to fall harshly to the ground again, his leg having been pulled out from under in. However, it did not impede his own rebuttal, which involved throwing a glop of black substance at the sorcerer. Damnatus grunted as it splattered over his left side - his sword arm - and found with some forced movements that it was almost impossible to currently move the appendage. Worse, it was stuck in an awkward position, unable to even be in position to defend himself. Yet, if one were to look at the psyker's features, they would not behold surprise or anger - no, they would behold the mounting, cruel and insane bemusement in the man.

Given a chance of respite, the enemy captain had the moment to continue their exposition with more of his dry wit.

Joseph Brown Wrote:

"That... That was highly unpleasant."

And Damnatus responded with more laughter.

"Ahahaha. Then I can assure you," he sneered, free right hand going up to his nose to wipe away another gout of nostril bleeding, "you shall love this."

If Joseph Brown had any technology or ability that perceived fluctuations in energy levels, he would note that Damnatus had suddenly begun to draw in power - a lot of it. The night wind suddenly picked up tempestuously, blasting the two of them with utter frigidness. The coat tails of Damnatus whorled around madly, and with the halo of malign energy that now began to envelop his frame, it seemed he took upon the guise of something wholly daemonic in nature.

He then extended his right hand, and snarled out loud.

"Dorosh."

For meters upon meters, distant persons would observe what appeared as the dawning of a new, multi-colored sun.

The Scourging lashed out with pure, raging Warp currents, aiming to completely envelop and ravage the frame of Joseph Brown. The warpstuff appeared to be electricity, but it was no such thing - there would be no stunning, no paralysis. While it did inflict some burns, the main purpose of the Scourging was to strike victims down with agonizing pain and terrible mutations. It was one of the most violent and dangerous rituals in Damnatus' Malefic Codex, for as deadly as it was to its targets, it was almost as costly to the warp sorcerer. Smoke filtered into the air from the psyker's right glove, his flesh sizzling and fusing to the leather material horrifically. Damnatus felt his teeth beginning to crack from the stress of his clenched jaw, but he yet poured more of the terrible power into the spell and into Joseph.

And then, as suddenly as it had arisen, the prismatic star fell.

Vicious smoke blew throughout, filling the air with acrid smells that possessed no name. Crackles of the warp electricity continued to spark and dissipate eerily around the still sorcerer's extended arm. The silence that filled the land was deafening. It was though nothing would shatter it.

Until Damnatus suddenly bowled over, gasping and heaving and barely preventing himself from screaming.

The flesh was moving.

Upon his back, between his shoulders, the patch of impossibly-jointed fingers began to writhe violently. They lost their urge to fight one another and instead began to grow, and grow, and grow. Blood spurt from some of the tearing, but surprisingly, there was very little. The agonized cries that filled the air suggested that it didn't matter. The digits curved around at incomprehensible angles then, bending back down to press their tips on the sorcerer's back. They then began to push, and Damnatus began to scream. Those observing would witness something out of pure madness - the pushing finger-things began to pull a shape out of the psyker's back, pulling taught against the flesh. Before long, the ovular shape began to take shape, the flesh of the warp sorcerer's back giving it form. It morphed and move and squirmed - the fingers pushed harder, and Damnatus yelled louder. Wet snapping noises began to periodically fill the air, as the constant pushing caused some of the long digits to snap sickeningly in half. The object was still being pulled/pushed out, though, and before long, the flesh around it began to rip and tear, filling the air with its violent noises. At this point, Damnatus' cries were suddenly stifled, replaced with gurgling, which quickly resulted in the sorcerer losing the contents of his gut all over the graven earth. Oddly, the flesh the thing took did not seem to take any of the psyker's, for as it finally began to pull free, the skin, fat and muscle all warped back down into place on his back, free of any mutation or even scar.

And then, with a sickening splat, the tumor-head mutation fell to the ground before haphazardly scuttling off, crying and babbling out into the night horrifically.

It left the two of them to their own devices. Damnatus had now fallen forward, Vicissitude sticking into the earth and the black substance allowing the extended left to remain stiff and keep him up, with his left leg balancing him. Horrible, ragged breathing escaped torn lips, with drool and blood pooling heavily on the ground beneath his head. After some moments had passed, more odd sounds began to warble into the air.

He was laughing again.

Slowly, he hoisted himself back up, frame hunched. The halo of energy that had dissipated from him now began to re-manifest, only more violently. Cruel, pained laughed continued to fill the night as the power grew, whipping dirt and debris and scraps of clothing everywhere. The energy saturated him and everything else so greatly that the empty places beneath heavily-stitched lids began to glow ominously. Damnatus craned his head up and stared balefully into Joseph with that radiating emptiness, his mouth pulled into a rictus grin of aberration.

And he then spoke to the man.

"I feel the Warp overtaking me,"

"it is a good pain!"

[2/4]

[.5/.5] - Scourging cast

Malefic Codex: Potentia Majoris Wrote:

Scourging: By raising a splayed right hand and invoking the Tongue of Daemons, Damnatus can cause a burst of multi-coloured lightning to arc out and ravage a single enemy up to 20 meters away or multiple ones in a 90-degree cone from 10 meters away (with less effect due to less concentration) (1 turn cast time). Because it is not true lightning but rather energy from the Warp, it does not move anywhere near as fast as normal lighting and can be dodged by nimble opponents. Unlike lightning, it does not affect a victim’s nervous system, thus there is no stunning component to it; instead, it wracks them with terrible pain in addition to some burns and mutations. Using this ability scorches Damnatus’ right hand, making it more difficult to use and could cripple the limb with burns and mutations after repeated use. As always, mutations are another side-effect.

• Components: Somatic, Verbal – Due to the Mark of Tzeentch being carved upon his right palm, Damnatus must use it to use Scourging. In addition, this spell requires him to speak the Tongue of Daemons.

Meanwhile:

Two preteens had crept into the cemetary that night, their back-and-forth double dog dares propelling them onward, lest either one be seen as a "chicken". Held by both of them, one at either end, was a long pole with a piece of green cloth that matched the color of their clothing.

"That patch of darkness over there! What is it?" one whispered.

"I'unno, but we need to get close to it. Ready... go!"

They ran for it, heading for the globe of self-sustaining darkness and the fight that was taking place within. Just outside of the area where the fight was in progress, there was a small hole in the ground, like one would use as the target for a golfball. Running up to it, afraid that whatever was in the darkness might come for them or, worse yet, that adults might get wind of their nocturnal activity, they planted one end of the pole into the hole and raised the other end up...

and nothing happend.

"It's upside, tard!"

"Yeah, that was your end!"

"Awcrap!"

They pulled the pole out, flipped it upright so that the green cloth was on top, and planted it back in the pole. As the wind took it, the cloth unfurled revealing the symbol of Khorne.

Kid 1: "We did it!"

Kid 2: "Yeah we did!"

Together: "We capchoored eet! For kyaaaaaoooos!"

Content that they could brag about their courage to their friends, they ran back off into the night.

A stone tumbled from the crumbling walls of the tower as a figure appeared within a collapsed section halfway up and cast his gaze downward to the scene that was playing out in the graveyard below. His bare feet stepped between broken stones laying strewn about the cracked and broken stairway ascending to the highest point of the tower but he gave pause as he passed; standing at the edge and watching for a moment with utter disinterest. The man wore a dirty and tattered cloth around him like a it was a cloak, drawn up around his shoulders and concealing his body; gripped, it seemed, by both hands holding it shut from the inside as it was clear that the edges of it were crumpled in balled fists.

"And what is all this noise about?" he asked as if speaking to himself. "Beatrice, why are there..." With a gesture he lifted a bare arm covered in scars and stitchings and waved it at the melee as if this were his empire and his alone "...things in my garden?"

"I cannot answer, my lord," replied the figure that stood behind him on the stairs.

"Useless things, making a mess of the graves. At the very least they could go sit in the corpse pile with the rest of the materials until I..." the man continued, not even listening as he shook his head and turned to leave; but gave pause... his eye catching something which caused him to turn back, to stay a moment longer, and even to edge closer to the precipice to stare.

These creatures - whatever they were wasn't important at the moment and he was in no mind to bother classifying them as he had much more important matters to attend to - were hideous things in all rights and seemed to have no reason for defiling the garden other than to maim one another like petty children; for the most part that was... his eye had been captured by the two jewels that glistened despite their surroundings: the young women of either team. Whether they were attractive or unattractive compared to one another or to others of their species was irrelevant as such things could always be remedied through a brief surgery, but they were here so unexpectedly already half dead and delivered to his doorstep; and just when his last dolls had begun to wear out too.

The only thing that would have made it more perfect would have been if they had been piled onto a cart with a dozen more like them.

"Beatrice, what benefactor must I thank for this prompt delivery?" The man asked, a slimy purple tongue running across his dry and flaking lips as he watched the two women each with a single eye moving of its own accord.

"I cannot answer, my lord," replied the figure that stood behind him on the stairs.

"Then what good are you to me?" His hand swept back the cloth covering his head, the patchwork myriad of differently covered skin that was his face turning to a displeased scowl and he glared at the pathetic thing to which he spoke with a set of eyes in the back of his head.

"I cannot answer, my lord," replied the figure that stood behind him on the stairs."

His eyes narrowed... all of them, and at last the two that had been following the movements of the young ladies whom he was prepared to so graciously accept into the loving embrace of his operating table blinked slowly, readjusted themselves to align in unison, and turned to his side.

"Come here," he commanded, pointing to the edge of the crumbling tower... but as the finger began to lower he changed his mind, pointing instead a few inches beyond that point - at where the tower had been perhaps two hundred years past but was no longer there. "On second thought, stand there."

His servant obeyed, willingly stepping without a moment's hesitation over the edge.

In that instant the man threw his hands around her neck just as she stepped into the void and he spread his arms wide to grasp the edges of the broken wall as he leaned forward into the empty space there. The claws on his scaled hand dug ruts into the aged stone and the claws on his furred arm scraped mortar from between them but, careful not to damage the pristine flesh upon Beatrice's neck he had used two 'human' hands to snatch her up.

For a moment he merely held her there, always willing to take the time necessary to admire his own work. Beatrice had been his favorite at one time... though all of them had been his favorite at one time, until he made a new doll that better suited his current tastes. The blond hair he had thought was a very nice touch but after a few weeks with her he had felt that the shade was far too bright to match the bleak atmosphere of their decor and promptly had her scalped in favor of a darker hue. Though the style was no longer of any interest to him he recalled that he had chosen the pigtails because the bangs covered the surgical scars along the hairline and gave the entire work a more natural feel to it. The face, he recalled, had been from a tavern wench he had fancied during his brief stay in Lament (it had been quite troublesome reconstructing it the way that he had remembered, as the mind's eye does tend to leave a person's memory rose-colored when dealing with pretty women) but the true highlight of Beatrice's design was slowly being squeezed between his fingers - her long and slender neck that he just could not bring himself to bear separating from the original body and risking a permanent blemish upon it. It was for that reason that he had used a v-shaped section of the upper torso in entirety and began anew from the obliques below that.

Minimizing the visible scars was a priority when constructing a proper doll... a few stitches here and there at the joints was inevitable but those could be covered with clothing. Special care needed to be taken with the face, the neck, the shoulders, and the hands as those were often left uncovered by the style of modern dress and having a disfigured plaything just would not do.

"Tell me, Beatrice: why were you made?" The man knew the answer, that was not the point. He did not need to ask questions of his servants, his servants did not need to know more than what was necessary to complete the tasks he assigned to them. Beatrice was not made to be a bookkeeper - if he had honestly forgotten what he had made her for then he would have asked the question to Claudia, she was the one who kept track of the things he had no need to waste effort remembering.

"To assist you in your experiments, my lord. To assist you in collecting materials, my lord. To assist you in procuring necessary tools, my lord." Beatrice answered in exactly the same tone as she had before, her eyes like glass baubles looking at the ground at her master's feet as she was not permitted to look him in the eye, and her body hanging below the clutched grip of her master's hands like she were clothing hung from a hangar.

"Precisely. Now bring me some new parts to work with, I have the sudden urge to create." And with a bemused expression upon his face the necromancer let slip his hands, dropping her from the side of the tower.

"As you command, my lord." The words were taken by the wind.

Quote: TMJ - A darker variant thereof. says (12:47 AM):

I feel a little unhappy with mine.

Aaron says (12:48 AM):

That....

Is a lot bigger than mine

TMJ - A darker variant thereof. says (12:49 AM):

I managed to fit in almost everything I wanted to, but in a different way than I'd originally intended. And I did have to leave out the "the cameras would pan up and only be able to broadcast a man covered by a full body mosiac as if the nude figure standing there was offensive to viewers across every inch of his body".

******** it, I'm editing that in.