Fable - Ask Fumbles and Foibles

[Kalix]

Kalix had every intention of knocking Kristen out with one punch. Despite his easy-going words, or at least what he considered to be easy-going, he wanted to not go easy on the noble. How else was she supposed to get what she wanted out of this? How else was she supposed to learn to how to use all of her advantages?

Height was a big deal, even if all the pipsqueaks said otherwise. When you were bigger you had more weight, more reach, better view. The shorties needed to be sneaky. But Kalix? He was as sneaky as a bull in a china shop and he still was alive. He was doing something, right, wasn’t he?

In nothing but his academy-issued tunic and breeches and stocky-boots, Kalix kept his forward stance. He’d let Kristen cast her spell and then he’d—

Kalix gasped, his lungs felt like they were collapsing, his ribs were a cage too tight. He was still, feeling as if his skin was much too small for his body. He had felt this way before, four years again when he started using gravity to not just affect when he made impact but when he was learning how to make his body light or float. Dear Kress, he wasn’t using his magic either! So how on Arethil was he…?

Through the pain he saw Kristen rushing towards him. Despite the pain screaming in his muscles, he saw with blurry vision Kristen attempting to swing. His stance was loose, back hunched and not as tight as it was before, but he blocked it with his forearm, shoving it off to the side away from his face as his other arm went in for a overhead punch. Forget a jab! He couldn’t focus on the center of her face, not when he felt like his skin was about to break apart!

Kristen Pirian

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Blessed Aionus! Kalix's raw physicality was as impressive as it was, in this particular moment, unnerving. Her practice mace he just batted away with his own unarmored forearm! Such a thing seemed to make her own arm weep in empathy.

Scarce time for that, though. His diving punch, arcing down toward her.

Kristen jerked her head away, her body trailing after it like a surprised dog taking off after its master had burst into a sprint. Her ponytail, lagging behind in that motion, caught the punch and from the force of it whipped around to her other shoulder.

Stay calm. Stay calm! Even cursed, Kalix was still a dangerous foe, and she couldn't take punches like some of the tougher Initiates. Maybe some more of her magic, to weaken him further?

Kristen recited a verse. Quick, so only one Withering Chain sprang up from the ground between them. It whipped forward, seeking to ensnare one of his arms.

Kalix

 

[Kalix]

Kalix wasn’t anywhere near his best, that pain still cascading throughout his body, his nerves on fire. His body was screaming for him to stop, but the thing was… well, Kalix wasn’t doing anything. Not using his magic, not doing anything to warrant this sort of pain.

He was thankful for his training, because it was in these moments that dreadlords preserved.

He stepped forward, taking back his high stance, blurry gaze picking out Kristen once again. Punch her, punch her. One punch, one punch to end it all. Punchpunchpunchpunchpunch!

Another step and he went for a jab, Kristen’s chain wrapping around his forearm.

Kalix had never felt such a thing before, and the moment it was tightened around him, Kalix knew he didn’t like this feeling of… weakness.

Kalix sagged forward, dropping down to his knees, with him reaching up to Kristen. It was hardly a pitiful action, his face filled with ferocity. His body was weak, his head felt too heavy to raise up. Gritting his teeth, before Kristen managed to do anything, Kalix pictured it: Kristen swinging the mace to smash it against his head.

Kalix took a shuddering breath, there was only one thing that he could reach. The part of him that made everyone tremble in fear. The part of him that had killed Raf.

Everything around them began to float, rocks and the other other weapons on the wooden racks, even the weapon racks themselves would raise up, floating overhead.

Kristen Pirian

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Up she went! Her feet and the ground seeming to have a horrid disagreement, the former left the latter with an abrupt jolt and Kristen found herself adrift in the air. Like Elyr'Adith, like Elyr'Morath, only this time it was affecting her far more directly.

"Gah!" She couldn't help it. The exclamation came out. She flailed her arms about, losing her practice mace in the process and snatching it back up with her left hand. No! Don't panic! Stay calm! Remember Noel's tutelage.

Kristen looked around as if a solution might just be found somewhere nearby. She looked at the ground, a sort of desperation welling up inside of her and a vain attempt to will herself back toward it was building and building. She reached toward the ground out of that self-same desperation—

—and from her artificial right hand a Withering Chain launched forth, burrowing into the ground and with it she effectively pulled herself back down and planted her feet, the Chain like a leash upon the dirt keeping her steady even as her hair floated freely about her head.

What? How? How did she just do that? Her Chains could manipulate things, foes even, as she did to that Risen monster in Elyr'Morath, but...never had she summoned one from her palm and used it in such a manner as this.

The fluke left her momentarily stunned.

Kalix

 

[Kalix]

Kalix had a favorite trick, lifting someone up high into the sky and then watching them drop below to their death. It was something he wanted to do with Kristen— not to kill her but to maybe have her break a minor bone or two so she could take a trip to see Marcella. But then she had somehow, somehow managed to use her chains to… get back to the ground?

Could she always do that?

Didn’t matter, Kalix reminded himself as he struggled to find the strength to run towards her. He wasn’t running, at least not how he usually did. He was very much like a old man, like proctor Novgorodoff when he made his way as speedy as possible: which was to say it was just a quick shuffling of one’s feet but no real length in steps were taken.

Desperate and weak, with that chain still attached to him on top of the painful curse still imposed on his body, Kalix barreled into Kristen, attempting to crash his forehead against hers.

Kristen Pirian

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Was it her artificial hand? The adamantine in it? The enchantments? All working together? Something? She knew, she felt that there was something special about the adamantine, it resonated well with her magic, and maybe, just maybe, it was aiding her to do something she never—

Kalix bashed her skull with his own. A solid SMACK seemed to echo inside of her ears, her vision fractured into chaotic white streaks, and a red, aggressive, disorienting pain blared from a blazing star of a point between and above her eyes.

The shock of the impact made her knees give out. Instead of falling down her bracing against the loss of gravity failed, and her feet started to rise up as her body rotated, as if she had been caught by Arethil's slowest functioning ankle-snare trap. Near completely upside-down was she. Her attached Chain was the only thing that kept her from floating up further like everything else. To an outside observer, it might look like she was frozen in mid-air from a dive off of some higher ledge.

So, yes, this was an awkward position in which to find herself once her senses came back.

"Ah!"

What to do? What to do!

She just acted on instinct, on what accumulated training she had instilled within her. Incidentally, she was following Kalix's advice—thinking, albeit unconsciously, of herself as a whole.

Kristen yanked on the tethered Chain in the ground to gain a little momentum and tried, however awkwardly, to ram a knee in Kalix's general direction.

Kalix

 

[Kalix]

His headbutt connected! YeeessssoooOOOWWWW!!! Kalix blinked bovinely, feeling blood trickling down his brow. Warm and wet, it slid in crimson rivulets down his nose. He paused, bringing a free hand up to touch at the split skin. From experience Kalix knew that this was something small, almost like getting a split lip after being punched. So because of that, he didn’t linger too long on it and instead brought his golden gaze to where Kristen should be and—

“Oof!” Was the only sound that came from Kalix’s mouth, feeling that knee connect to the side of his head. His head whipped in that direction, and in response he lessened the gravity even further, the blood on his nose beginning to drift up in small globules of red.

As Kristen would feel herself begin to be even more weightless than before, Kalix managed to grab her ankle, and with a roar he made an action to throw her, using all of his strength in an attempt to catapult her to the side.

It was then that her cursed chain truly affected Kalix, and at the worst possible time on top of it. All of Kalix’s arcane might was sucked up, as well as his physical prowess. Just as he was barely arcing Kristen over his head, he fell over, hitting the ground hard, right as gravity returned to normal.

Kristen Pirian

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Down into a cluttered heap the two of them fell. Somewhere along the way, Kristen's Chains all dissipated (as well as the energies of the short-lived Curses ailing Kalix). She groaned, the dull ache in her head from the headbutt marching at the forefront of all the other pains assembled from the half-throw and hard fall.

She breathed heavily from her exerted efforts. The current view within her field of vision was an askew look at diagonal Dormitories beyond the likewise diagonal confines of the sparring arena. Kalix was somewhere down there below the tangled mess of her arms and legs and other assorted parts.

"I..." she started, "haven't been able...to do something like that. Summoning a Chain from my hand. Tethering it...like a rope...to a surface."

Kalix

 

[Kalix]

“You must have really wanted to win.” Kalix said. Perhaps an awkward set of words all things considering. Sucking in air through his teeth, Kalix began the rather painful process of trying to get Kristen untangled from him without accidentally touching her chest. Actually, if he ever wanted an excuse to…

No! What would Proctor D’Amour say? Kalix pushed his lecherous thoughts to the back of his mind as he managed to get on his hands and knees. He wiped at the small cut right in between his eyes as if he had just successfully popped a zit. He sat back on his heels and then turned to look at Kristen.

“You gave it everything you got. Well, almost everything, not like you were trying to kill me, hahahaha!”

Kristen Pirian

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen, sitting cross-legged, grimaced when Kalix said that, the venomous sting of Raf's death surfacing with still a potent bite even after such time that had since passed. Were it any other Initiate she might have thought the remark to have been purposeful. Yet with Kalix...it was hard to believe that was so. Kalix was dangerous, yes, but in the way that an enraged grizzly bear was dangerous.

He likely was not aware of the pale implications of what he'd said.

So, gently, Kristen merely replied, "Right," and let that be that.

She sighed, her breath laden with a touch of anxiety.

"On the morrow, I should hope such a technique may benefit me well. This, and a similar drive to win. I wish not to test the wrath of Proctor Magomo."

And, unsaid, she wished dearly to actually succeed for once.

Kalix

 

[Kalix]

Kalix nodded along to Kristen’s words. It was actually a wonderful “accident” to realize her chains had more than just the traditional uses. Besides, even if she did use the chains as she intended, it was fair enough to say that their draining properties could be a damper on anyone if they get caught.

“Too bad you can’t hide your chains underground and make them like a spiderweb.” Kalix said, speaking with his hands and motioning lattice-work with his fingers. “Then it’d be like if the person took one wrong step—ZAP!— and they gotta feel like some tired old man. I remember when all us fifth years had to run across a minefield. Or rather figure out how to use our magic so we didn’t necessarily have to run across it.” He looked up at the sky and then stood up. “They don’t make us do that anymore.”

Leaning over, Kalix offered a hand to Kristen to help her up.

“You’re smarter than me, KP. I think if you play it right, you’ll win.”

Kristen Pirian

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen looked at Kalix's offered hand.

And she was struck by the thought that to take it was, in a way, to extend a measure of forgiveness for what happened Raf, such as was within her capacity to do so. There came a dark knowledge that the old way discouraged friendships, warmth, for reasons like this, that networks of friends would with one killing result possibly in a chain of revenge killings. Too many, perhaps, even for the harsh old way of the Academy to endure.

But to forgive? To willingly break such a chain? Even though the old Academy might not have wanted a runaway cycle of revenge, likewise would they abhor forgiveness as a whole, Kristen imagined, as being unbefitting of a Dreadlord.

She looked to the hand.

And accepted it. Rose up to her feet with Kalix's help. In her idea of the Dreadlord she wished to be, of the person she wished to be, forgiveness was very much a part.

She offered Kalix a smile.

"Whether tomorrow evening reveals me victorious or no," she said, "today have I claim to something dear indeed."

Kalix