Open Chronicles The Grand Tournament of Tides

Samantha Black said:

Sam looked and her brows larked as she found the man looking right at them, "Damnit Ane, I told you not to stare. You're bothering him."

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Xeraphine Yldore
Samantha Black

Afanas raised a finger in response to Xeraphina's words, a gesture meant to temporarily hush her. His head remained turned, his neck twisted to a degree that no human neck could have possibly achieved without going 'SNAP-POP-CRUNCH'. This, of course, because his spine had long ago come to an arrangement with the rest of his body that involved certain liberties being taken that transcended the limitations of conventional anatomy.

He quirked an eyebrow at the older girl, Samantha, his ears had informed him earlier, along with the younger one's name, Anja. It saved him the trouble of asking. Afanas appreciated efficiency, particularly when it came from organs that did their job without requiring supervision.

"Bother," he began, "is a strong word."

He tilted his chin, just a smidge, enough for the midday sun to finally reach his face. The light revealed impossibly smooth skin the color of bleached bone and the sculpted, statuesque features of his countenance, the sort of face that sculptors would have killed to capture, and sell, definitely sell.

"However," he continued, and there was something almost conversational about it now, as if they were ventilating on today's weather rather than the fact that she'd just compared him to municipal building, "I do prefer being spoken to directly. If you've something to say, I implore you to say it to my face, rather than gossiping about it behind my back."

He paused.

"I assure you, I don't bite."

This was, at best, a partial truth. Afanas did bite. He had bitten people on several occasions, some of them quite deserving of it. But he didn't bite everyone, and certainly not without what he considered reasonable provocation. A remark about his height hardly qualified, if he took offense every time someone mentioned it, he'd have depopulated half the city by now.

Sir Dwendare Castlegrip swung mightily and heroically. Through air. His opponent -- gone.

What?

Boots landed behind him, crunching sand. Pain lanced in his hamstrings and he took the knee.

WHAT?

And then, his mother and heraldry were thoroughly insulted.

"WHAT?!"

The outcry within him finally found escape through his mouth. Indeed, just as Marek had hoped for, furious outrage overtook his better senses, and he rose, lifting his sword to lance through this mouthy, airborne guttersnipe. However, his greaves met resistance, and the motion that had taken him back up to his feet through twenty-odd years of life now sent him hammering back down on the ground, the back of his breastplate and gamberson pounding against the dirt.

He was now staring up at the bright, blue sky through the slit in his visor; breath roaring within the kettle of his helmet.

Impossible.

The crowd exclaimed their surprise and sucked their teeth -- not with any sympathy, but more accurately with glee at seeing someone else bite the dust than them. That snapped his attention away from the sky to earthly matters.

Where had that little bastard gone--

Marek

Marek moved with the fall. Not away from it, but through it. As the armored bulk crashed down, Marek flowed past the trajectory, boots skidding once in the sand before he turned and stepped in close.

The sky vanished for Sir Cuttlefish.

Marek stood over the knight, framed against the sun, blotting it out entirely. Smoke curled from his right hand, skin blistered and raw where the lightning had burned him, fingers trembling faintly with aftershock, but his grip did not fail. The blade held true, unwavering, its edge slid with cruel precision beneath the rim of the knight’s helmet, wedged into the narrow, lethal space where armor gave way to flesh and breath.

Every rise of the knight’s chest pressed him closer to the steel.

Marek didn’t grin. Didn’t sneer. There was no triumph in his face at all, only focus, cold and absolute, the storm in him finally stilled into something far more dangerous.

“Yield,” he said quietly.

The arena went dead silent.

No drums. No cheers. No horns. Thousands of people held their breath as one, eyes fixed on the sight of a fallen champion staring up at a burned-handed nobody.

Sir Dwendare Castlegrip

A helmet such as his might not be much good for slinging back verbal ripostes and repartees in the heat of battle.

But it was useful for covering up muttered incantations -- along with nasty, excited smirks.

By all accounts, in a regular battle of arms, a fall such as his meant a loss. But this was a battle of both blade and spell. Despite the swordtip pressed dangerously close to his throat, he allowed his smile to widen behind the helmet. The faintest flutter of pages overhead scarcely reached the ears. The crackle of energy from his palm muffled by digging his gauntlet into the sand.

"Now why . . . should I . . . yield . . ." In the silence and proximity, his low, posh tones slithered through his gorget, before erupting into a sudden lion's roar: ". . . to a street rat!"

Everything happened at breakneck speed. The flying tome, near forgotten in their battle, flew straight for Marek like a battering ram. In the same token, and by the end of his spell, Sir Dwendare's form dissipated into a gaseous, purple cloud cracked by azure veins. As vapor, he drifted up within the pages of the book, all but vanishing from crowd and enemy, whether the hefty tome had struck its target or not.

Yes, he thought, directing the tome and his own essence upward, hovering above Marek. No doubt this sort of magic would convolute a simple brute like Marek, unable to identify the tenuous tether between Dwendare and his grimoire. So long as the pages remain open, I can materialise myself. And then . . .

There would be a certain poetic justice to hammering down on top of Marek from above, letting either his blade or the sheer bulk of his armour crush him like a bug.

Marek

For one fatal moment, Marek believed. Believed that a man with banners, titles, and a watching crowd would choose honor above all, especially in front of such a huge crowd. Believed that a knight with a legacy to uphold would meet steel with steel, or spit defiance and die standing rather than take underhanded shots. The same things Marek always criticized. That was the mistake, thinking his opponent would play by the rules Marek himself had never followed.

The sound came first.

A rush of air. Pages flapping overhead, a violent whuff like wings snapping open. Marek’s instincts screamed a warning a fraction too late. There was no time to turn, no space to dive away. Only the cold certainty that something was coming for him fast.

So he did the only thing left. Marek drove his blade in.

Not a careful thrust. Not a measured press. A vicious, desperate carve under the rim of the gorget, steel biting where breath and blood shared space, fueled by pain and fury and the sheer refusal to yield.

At the same time, the flying tome struck him like a siege stone. Impact cracked through his skull, white-hot and absolute. His vision imploded into darkness, sound shearing away as if the arena itself had been swallowed whole. Marek’s body went slack, blade slipping free as he collapsed into the sand.

Nothing. No sky. No crowd.

Just black.

He hit the ground hard and did not move. He was knocked out cold and completely at the mercy of a potentially wounded knight.

Sir Dwendare Castlegrip

Upon witnessing the effect of his tome, Sir Dwendare would have laughed. Chortled even, in full abandon -- if he hadn't been a floating cloud of magic, that was.

The crowd roared in their surprise. This was even better! Oh, the bards would sing about this, for certain. How he had allowed himself to seem defeated, only to come out on top. A bit of theatrics, really, why, he couldn't let them get used to him winning all the time. Yes. Yes, that would work quite well.

But he wanted a physical form to gloat in, his laugh to travel down his belly and to rip off his helmet and receive the adoration of the crowd. So on in a jiffy he popped back out of his book, in a dashing swirl of purple-and-blue mist. The ladies would surely swoon once he showed off his chiseled jaw after this.

He materialised. Something hot and liquid ran down his gorget. He ripped off his helmet, letting his luscious, golden locks fly free.

"I aghhGHH--!"

Hold on, why didn't any words come out? He looked down himself and saw a carpet of crimson streaming out from below his helmet, covering his surcoat in oozing red. At about that time, he could start to feel life flowing out of him; delayed by the amorphous nature of his spell.

Oh. Oohh . . . Bollocks.

Consequently, the knight crumpled soon after his opponent, falling face-first with a dull thump of steel against sand. The helmet clanked and rolled off, plume dipped in the pool of blood like some infernal quill.

At lightning speed, healers rushed into the battleground -- one to save the knight from bleeding out, the other to ensure Marek's skull hadn't cracked. The tome lay uselessly by the side, now as inert as its master.

"And the winner is . . . um . . . hold now, let's see."

Healer near Marek made a negatory gesture. Same was repeated by the other; bright healing magic closing the knight's throat.

"It's . . . well, gods above, I do think it's a draw." The crowd clamoured in their awestruck captivity to the action; this had been some of the best entertainment all day, sure to reach far into many a tavern and inn as a relayed story. How the richling and the pauper shared an equal end. At the end of the day, no matter how much coin one might have, a competition boiled down to skill and quick thinking. The lesson of the day for the crowds. The herald gained some confidence in his own proclamation, especially when both Marek and Sir Dwendare were dragged off to their separate corners.

"It's a DRAW!! Incredible!!!"

Sam sighed into a hand over her face as the almost impossibly tall man decided to engage with her sister rather than simply ignore her as she was hoping he would do.

Anje, much to the Dreadlord's surprise, was not shying away from him, either. Sheltered though she had been for a good majority of her life, Sam had noticed more and more lately that the younger woman had an affinity for the... odd.

The weird.

The abnormal.

A handsome noble fellow approaching? Absolutely not.

This clock-tower behemoth in a jaunty hat and cape? Enthralling.

The younger of the two sisters continued to watch him with marked interest, her posture affecting someone studious, "Do you often find doorways tall enough to permit you without bowing beyond churches and barnyards?" The question seemed to be asked in earnest and not out of some form of jest.

Afanas

Samantha Black said:

The younger of the two sisters continued to watch him with marked interest, her posture affecting someone studious, "Do you often find doorways tall enough to permit you without bowing beyond churches and barnyards?" The question seemed to be asked in earnest and not out of some form of jest.

Afanas

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Samantha Black

"Seldom," he said, and finally turned the rest of his body to face her.
It was an odd thing to observe, like watching a huge drawing compass pivot. His neck remained twisted in a fixed position while his body rotated around it until the direction of his face matched the direction in which the rest of him was pointing. The movement possessed the mechanical grace of a lighthouse beam sweeping across dark water, smooth, inevitable, and slightly ominous.


"Aside from my office and personal quarters, I very much doubt there's more than a handful of dwellings in Alliria constructed with consideration for people taller than seven feet."

He removed the wide-brimmed hat from his head and held it against his chest. Chestnut-colored locs, long and wavy, spilled over his broad shoulders.

His large, batlike ears became more evident, batlike, for they were far too large, broad and robust to be mistaken for an elf's ears. An elf's ears suggested elegance, heritage and a possible penchant for excessive tree-hugging. Afanas's suggested that their owner could hear a mouse plotting sedition three streets away or call out a liar on the grounds that they could detect changes in ones heartbeat.


"I am of slightly above average height for my age and species," Afanas continued, with the tonal calmness of a man who had explained this many times before and learned to ignore the awkwardness of it all. "My people simply happen to be tall."

Coming from Afanas, it was the sort of statement that carried the same weight as calling the ocean "a smidge wet" and referring to dragons as "large, moderately flammable chickens".

He extended his free hand in Anje's direction.

It was huge, the size of a serving platter, impossibly pale. The flesh looked almost like polished alabaster in its unnatural smoothness, each fingertip graced by a lacquered black claw that only served to accentuate Afanas's overall paleness.

The claws weren't filed to points, that would have been theatrical. They were simply what grew there, as natural as fingernails and infinitely more useful at removing stubborn corkscrews and fiddling with letters without having to resort to a knife.

"I am Afanas, son of Vlakhos, Lord Commander and chief of the city's security. And you are...?"

Marek came back to the world with sand in his mouth, a ringing skull, and the overwhelming conviction that he had just lost a fight to stationery.

He staggered to his feet, swaying once before catching himself. The ache set in all at once, head pounding, shoulder screaming, right hand a mess of blistered, blackened skin. He stared at it, flexed his fingers carefully. They worked. Barely. Sparks crackled weakly, then fizzled out.

“Fantastic,” he grumbled. “Knocked out by a fucking book.”

He dragged himself toward the barrier, gave the arena one last irritated look, then hopped the fence in an ungainly vault that lacked all the earlier grace of his fighting. The crowd barely noticed; their attention was already locked on fresh blood and cleaner bouts.

Marek landed among the spectators, scowling. “I am never going to hear the end of this,” he muttered. “Felled by literature.”

He leaned against the railing, arms crossed, jaw tight. It should’ve felt like a victory. He’d toppled a champion. Forced him to cheat. Walked away alive. But it sat wrong in his gut, sour and unresolved.

As he shifted, he caught sight of someone beside him, that tall city commander flanked by two women deep in conversation.

Marek squinted at them, then sniffed and turned back to the arena. He stayed scowling, simmering, already replaying the moment in his head because draws were worse than losses.

He had been making a carving as they traveled in the carriage.

Just him, a knife, a piece of rough wood and his grumpy betrothed.

Bliss, truly.

The wood carving was steadily gaining in progress. Shaping itself up into a horse with his patience and effort, but it was paused as Lorelei Darke spoke up. He himself glanced up, a little smirk playing there, which was caught by Lorelei.

As if she could read his mind or as if she knew where his mind could wander.

"You don't even know what I was about to say." Fane said with a laugh, crossing one leg over the other as he glanced out of the window.

"Perhaps I was going to remark on the weather, or perhaps I was going to ask you if you'd like a shoulder massage." Innocently his eyes returned to her.

"You do not wish for a shoulder massage, my Lady?"

The nun arched her neck after the battle, and then, she saw them. The Merchant Council, far above, glancing down upon them all from their vantage point of stone.

Something entered her eye that was anything but piety or philosophical curiosity. A fire flared within her, as hot and devouring as that of any daemon. Its coal only needed the sight of them to be stoked, even but the distant glimpse of them was enough to feed this flame. She might burn alive from within if she lingered -- if she kept nourishing it.

Afanas was distracted. By a little girl and her stern-looking mother, it appeared; someone of martial posture and strength, dark hair braided into a single, severe braid. Whether this was to interact with the hoy polloy to increase his public persona and to dodge her uncomfortable question, or if someone had genuinely caught his interest, it mattered little. This was her brief window to leave; before her facade crumpled into unrelenting hatred.

The crowd surged forward at the end of the battle, everyone pushing to the front to see its conclusion. She saw an opportunity in that — and while everyone else pushed forward, she pulled back. Her tombstone smile and black-hooded visage submerged below a sea of joy and colour, vanishing among them like a stone thrown into a glittering lake.

The seed had been sown. Whether it would take root and grow only time would tell. But she had delivered the question that she had sought to ask. She had looked him in the eye, taken the stock and measure of him. She could see why the council might enjoy his gloomy presence. A naive soul with a grim ledger of experience, someone who wouldn't shirk from sordid deeds that needed doing -- and wouldn't ask too many questions in the process. A seeker of purpose and duty, perhaps, which the councillors would be more than happy to supply. And to exploit.

Rumour had it he was invulnerable. That he could grow back limbs like others grew flowers in their pots. Well, in that case . . . it was time to test if his loyal spirit remained as endurant as his long corpus.

Meanwhile, the dragon-motifed casket ended on a desk deep within the keep, flanked by two mages. They subjected it to various detection spells, even sought to penetrate its wood with arcane sight. Nothing. Disturbingly nothing. One theorised that it was inlaid with lead — not an uncommon technique to deny the use of divination magic for its contents. At the same time, they couldn't detect any engravings or runes on the outside of it. But they did spot that it had a mechanism that would activate upon using the key, and that its bottom interior rattled gently, as if full of coin.

Afanas
Samantha Black
Marek
Blackburn Fane

Attention annoyingly split between watching the tail end of the match and ensuring this uniquely tall stranger meant no ill-will toward her ward, Sam managed only a terse sigh as she shifted her focus completely from the fight and to the interaction beside her. These fights were a copper a dozen, though she'd always reveled in watching others duel under unique circumstance. It paid to see their tricks and strategies.

She'd used more than enough of them on the battle field, herself.

Turkey leg near half-finished, she spied a hungry looking child... or was it a goblin? Hard to tell the difference, apparently, and handed it out to them. The snatch and run took the remainder of her lunch out of sight quicker than a greased hog. Brows raised, she wiped her face and then her hands on her kerchief before stuffing it back into a leather pouch.

Afanas said:

"I am Afanas, son of Vlakhos, Lord Commander and chief of the city's security. And you are...?"

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The look of considerate empathy for the tall one's plight quickly dissolved from the younger woman's face as hand encroached upon the space between them. Anja eyed it the same way a horse eyed a raised whip.

Another hand took that of Afanas instead: gloved, firm, confident.

"Lieutenant Black of the Anirian Knights, Leader of the Dragonsbane Special Forces Squadron," Sam moved to insert herself between the man and her sister in the way a blade inserted itself between two pieces of armor, "and this is my ward. Excuse my interruption, the young Lady does not like to be touched."

Anja's gaze dropped in a mixture of shame and bewilderment.

Sam briefly glanced back at her, the edge of her gaze softening, "Would you like to introduce yourself?"

"Lady Anja of Oban," she replied, barely audible over the crowds to any but the one with bat-ears. She offered it with a hurried and practiced curtsy. Anja did not look back at Afanas.

"I apologize on her behalf if her words brought any insult, she is still learning the ways of public etiquette beyond Oban."

Samantha Black

Afanas knew when the nun departed, or, more precisely, began her departure, not because he troubled himself to watch her go, but because he heard it and felt her scent diminishing. She smelled peculiar, of iron and coal and smoke and a trace of crude oil. She smelled like a forge. Nuns do not smell like that. They smell of incense, beeswax and sacramental wine gone slightly vinegary with age. Nuns also do not hurriedly vanish into crowds when one's attention wanders elsewhere.

He was, suddenly, relieved that he hadn't delivered the casket she'd pressed upon him. Relieved that he had instructed it to remain sealed until he gave explicit orders otherwise. A small voice in the recesses of his skull whispered: It's a bomb, Afanas. That thing is going to go kablowie the instant you unlock it. Melt half your face off in the process.
The thought settled over him like a damp cloak. His face would probably grow back. It usually did. But it was never pleasant, and the intervening period made appearing in public exceedingly difficult.

He blinked, hauled back to the present when Samantha's hand, gloved, confident, and possessing the grip of someone who'd held swords more than any other implement, wrapped around his own. He gazed at the woman's face properly now. She didn't seem that much older than her ward, though there was a quality to her eyes that suggested she'd seen considerably more of the world, and much of it unpleasant.

He shook her hand, carefully modulating his grip. Breaking bones by accident was an occupational hazard he'd learned to guard against. He'd fractured metacarpals before during what should have been perfectly cordial greetings, and the lengthy apologies had been exhausting to compose.

"It is fine. Handshakes are merely what my line of work has conditioned me into deeming acceptable. Call it professional deformation, Lieutenant Black."

Though gloomy in mien, Afanas maintained scrupulous attention to hygiene. The air around him carried notes of spearmint and lemongrass, deliberate choices. He'd discovered that smelling pleasant tended to offset his otherwise uninviting appearance (which wasn't the result of his being ugly, mind you, just the fact he had a severe case of 'resting cunt face') without venturing into the treacherous territory of excessive cologne. There existed a precarious line between "acceptably refined" and "looking like a ceremonial peacock" and he had no intention of being the latter.

"And worry not. I take no offense to Lady Anja's words." His ears had caught her introduction despite the cacophony of the crowd. "Curiosity is admirable. I believe it should be encouraged. It is a potent rectifier against ignorance, prejudice and small-mindedness."

Blackburn Fane said:

"You don't even know what I was about to say." Fane said with a laugh, crossing one leg over the other as he glanced out of the window.

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She pinned him with narrow and suspicious green, "I don't need to..." before eyeing his current little project, gaze softening just faintly. He'd picked up some curious hobbies since they'd come to their agreement. All potential things considered, whittling was the least disruptive.

Both for her and for the city at large. He wasn't bungling about, trashing bars and inns night by night anymore.

No, now she was finding little carved figurines in random places within the manor and warehouses. He was actually quite good at it and she rather liked the little bird she'd found hidden within her stacks of parchment and notes in her study.

If only she could get him to stop leaving tiny wood chips and litter like a child leaving cookie crumbs everywhere he went...

Blackburn Fane said:

"Perhaps I was going to remark on the weather, or perhaps I was going to ask you if you'd like a shoulder massage." Innocently his eyes returned to her.

"You do not wish for a shoulder massage, my Lady?"

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"You already know the answer."

Whatever it is, the answer is no.

The carriage came to a stop abrupt enough to faintly raise the hackles of annoyance within her gaze. Her hand moved to open the sliding plate that looked out from beneath the carriage driver's seat, just between his boots and through the ears of the horses. There seemed to be some sort of road block ahead by the city guard.

"What is it?" she called to the driver.

"Parade of Flags, m'Lady," he answered her back, "this will be a while. We won't get through until it's over."

"Fabulous." There was nothing else for it. She'd either have to walk the crowds to get to her work, or sit here and bake in the carriage for the entire afternoon. Neither option were particularly appealing, but at the very least walking meant progress and she was loathe to remain stagnant when there was so much to be done.

The sigh that followed was the same sort a dragon might make when faced with a hoard of angry guardsmen for the tenth time in one day.

"We will walk the rest of the way."

"Yes, Lady Darke."

The door swung open by the attendant moments later and Lorelei's great red mane of hair slipped out into the daylight like a live fireball in a green dress.