[TOURNAMENT] Prelims - Jha'rach vs. Snoo

[Daemn K'rryl]

OoC: All Round 1 fights will be against NPCs, so we can make this thing last longer .

The tension in the air leading up to the annual tournament was almost palpable.

From all across town, there was only one topic of conversation in every tavern on every street. The citizens of Riparia almost lived for these brightenings, when the festive spirit of the city really came to the fore and it would be parties from here to Ætheria. If there was one thing the average Riparian liked, it was a good old-fashioned tournament and the plethora of exhilarating entertainment it offered. Many had come to sign up, but many were also rejected; there being only 16 exclusive slots to fill, not any old Tom **** or Harry could enter. The participants needed to impress the registrar with either their physique, their demeanour or their general aura of aggressiveness.

For those disappointed with missing out on entering the tournament, not all was lost - there were still the usual exhibition matches that sometimes occured, often involving spectators chosen randomly from the crowd. Consideration was given to the womenfolk and the children, but if you looked like a healthy young man and a special match was on, you'd better watch out, because you could end up in the pit with something nasty.

The very first fight of the tournament was slated to be between a hard-eyed Vysstichi named Jha'rach and a human named Snoo. None of the contestants had arranged anything, as the pairings were randomised, so often one never know who one was fighting until the last minute. Such were the musings of Jha'rach as he stepped forward into the hard earth ring to the cheers of the crowd. The atmosphere burned with excitement, and there were already some patrons who were worse for drink. Pretty young wenches combed the stalls with beverages, snacks and rogueish winks, much to the amusement of the predominantly male crowd.

The Vysstichi eyed the ring as he was led into it - sunlight streamed through the hole in the roof, the glorious afternoon lighting the arena well... perhaps a little too well for the dark elf's liking. However, he could see fine without much discomfort, so that didn't seem to be much of a problem. The ring was about fifty feet square, so there was plenty of room to move around in, and the floor was hard-packed earth. The edges of the ring were composed of three ten-foot stone walls upon which the risers stretched, and the entrance to the building which was simply a stretchy cord strung accross open space.

His opponent... his opponent seemed to be having difficulty concentrating. Jha'rach looked hard at the middle-aged human, who appeared long gone past the horizons of sanity. Snoo was about thirty-five, six foot flat with a scrubby carrot beard and a wiry frame. He was in fact an old favourite with the Riparian crowd, famous for his violent rage tantrums and his mouth-frothing madness. A twitch gleaned next to his right eye and his muscles seemed to spasm oddly every minute or so, but there was a lot of sinewy strength to be seen in his lanky bare-chested frame.

Out strode the referee in his black-and-white tunic, to the wild applause of the spectators. This era's tournament was finally getting underway.

"Laaaaaaaadies and gentlemeeeeeeeeeeeen! I welcome you to the ninth annual Riparian Fight Tournament!" he boomed confidently, arms spread wide to the accolades of the crowd. "Please remember that there is to be no arcana in this building. Mage referees are stationed throughout the stands, and any metaphysical fluctuations will be dealt with quickly and harshly. No form of aid is to be given to the participants. Nothing is to be thrown into the ring, on the penalty of expulsion and banning from the premises."

There was a dull murmuring - they had heard this all before. It was all traditional pre-rumble warning, and the ref's voice changed as though he had just gotten some unpleasant duty out of the way.

"Now, ladies and gentlemen... let's get ready to ruuuuuuuuumble!" he cried, the stands erupting with cheers. "In the East corner is a newcomer, a shadowy Vysstichi with a dark aura and most certainly a determination to triumph over all comers, weighing in at one hundred and ten pounds... Jha'rach Fai'de!" The dark elf was pushed forward so the crowd could get a good look at him before being approved by wild cheers. "Aaaaaaaand in the West corner, our very own fan special, the crazy cranium cruncher, the spit-gun harry, totally insane in the membrane, weighing in at one hundred and fifteen pounds... Snoo!"

Immediately the crowd laughed uproariously, pointing at Jha'rach's opponent with mirth. Snoo had bounced up, foam pouring from the corners of his mouth and eyes rolling wildly with madness, roaring into the stands. "IT'S NOT FETHING FUNNY! IT'S A NAME LIKE ANY OTHER! I WILL NOT BE LAUGHED AT!!" Obviously there was the source of the man's insanity. However, the dark elf did not have long to reflect upon this as a bell sounded, signifying the start of the fight.

Ding!

[Jha'rach D'Rinishad]

OOC: Timestamp?

IC:

Blood ran across the floor, like the Umblat's icy hell; his breath was crookedly being sucked into his broken body. There he lay, wretchedly shattered, his conscious state slipping away from him. A blackness threatening to take hold and pulling him down; the floor shone where he could see through his own vital fluid. It poured carelessly out of his facial structure... Broken flesh, opened within the orifice's of the face, wrought by the elf, shaped by the elf now. The elf which had become so much more than a faerie plaything of the matron mother. His mother. Bitch.

Experimentally he ran his tongue along his teeth, surprised to find them in order. How little he cared. In one moment he realised that his lineage meant nothing. That he was nothing. There he found the taste. Tasting the crimson liquid which pooled in his lower palette, the vysstichi's sporadic thoughts spooled around his mind closing off one before the previous finished. He felt his body pulse with the movement of his blood. He found himself feeling in beats. Beats of his lifeforce. He had found his answer.

Finally, his core could no longer be contained, his mind finally gave into the battle. But no; he did not fall into the abyss; his conscious state remained; though he pulled away; and his body stood. The blood ebbing through his body; strong; unbeknownst to its broken hull. A husk; there boiled the rage, there boiled instinct, and there; the only thought was of blood.

He stood wavering against the wall, stripped to the waist, his hair tied neatly into a bun. Cloth was wrapped around each of his forearms and fists; enough to slow the blood should he open his knuckles. They would offer him no protection; though he did not need it. He pulled away from those thoughts with a smirk, his unflinching gaze broken only by reconnoitering with the dead. That man had died long ago. Yet was he so different now? The fight had necessitated the memory of the last time he'd stepped into a ring with an opponent, fighting bare-knuckled.

Yes, very different.

It was time.

He stepped into the raucous room, and felt his elven ears cringe at the ferocious noise the crowd made. His unshakeable demeanor held firm, though he felt himself fill with disgust at the sight of the unintelligible crowd, (mainly humans), shouting their encouragement, spite and plain drunken banter. His eyes had taken their time adapting to this light, he had entered the building at early dawn after a long train with the blade; in hopes that his vision would be persuaded to spare him the squint of the daylight hours. The building however had been darkened, indubitably for the simplicity of attracting a larger crowd; allowing him an easy sight in the ring.

He had not come for glory. He had not come for a win. He had not come to prove himself. He had come for the blood and to break the barrier of indifference he unceasingly felt. He would enjoy that which he could deal this day. He would savour every moment of it.

His body had been adequately stretched, and his morning training had filled his muscular frame with the added stamina he would require in delivering harsh blows to his opponent. His chest rippled with taught sinew, stretched over what seemed an impenetrable lean frame. He was the epitome of a machine. His training had given him a finesse which bypassed the inherent comfort the elves had with their bodies and the prince had shown an affinity to battle long before his training. His experience with the blade and battle experience was often and easily applied to hand-to-hand combat, as the blade was taught to be only an extension of the body. The body was the weapon. A fact proven true repeatedly by experience.

He took up a defensive stance as his opponent marched into the room. An apparently unhinged fellow. Oh the irony. Froth from his mouth spilt over the ring as he entered and Jha'rach smiled only once before embracing the mental requiem of the dance. He remembered fondly the killing of a caravan of men when the bloodlust took him. He remembered their blood on his body, dripping off his lips, and yes... He remembered when he had craved their corpses so much that foam had fallen into the night air. Oh how little this one knew of true insanity. How little he knew the dance of blood.

Hate wrapped around him, hardened him, drew him deeper into the core, and finally released him. It was his body now. Here he stood. Waiting; the instinctual craving, the carnal lust, waiting to be released. His body was focused, he was the weapon now. All that remained now was the floor, his opponent and the silence of his mind; slowly filling with the storm.

He waited.

Ding!

And it began.

[Daemn K'rryl]

OoC: First cycle of Aperitus, just like it says in the sign-up thread. You're the first fight of the tournament, so you're on brightening one.

IC: It seemed to be a good matchup - both fighters were clearly insane, though only one was showing it. Snoo frothed and spat at the crowd as they laughed at his ridiculous name and mad demeanour, at one point even taking his eyes off Jha'rach and trying to scale the walls in order to tear apart a particularly fat man in the front row. He was restrained by fight officials, who threw him back into the pit and ordered him to take his rage out on only one person - the dark elf.

Jha'rach on the other hand seemed quiet and collected - at least, on the outside he did anyway. Inside his mad hate was building and building until it pooled in an almost limitless resevoir of unholy energy, the kind of stamina that has the capacity to keep seeking the bloodsplatter long after one should have been dead from inflicted wounds. Only the burning madness behind the Vysstichi's eyes belied his mental state, and the crowd was far too engrossed in the human's antics to be bothered overmuch by Jha'rach.

Snoo seemed to have finally cracked, jumping up and down on all fours in an enraged imitation of a primate, several miles over the madness horizon and accelerating. His scrawny chest was covered in spittle and phlegm from his disgusting bodily functions, and they were crusting over in a gross testament to the sadness of human existence. If only his mother had given him a different name things may not have turned out like this, but the past had been done and Snoo was here.

The crowd roared loudly with amusement as the man physically tore a chunk of his own scraggy beard off his face, roaring with blindness to pain, his eyes rolling crazily. Running jerkily over to Jha'rach in an unexpected move, he closed the distance surprisingly quickly. Not bothering with a formal stance or proper testing of his opponent's capabilities, Snoo instead launched himself bodily towards the dark elf, aiming to use his full weight to bring Jha'rach crashing to the ground. If the Vysstichi allowed himself to be pinned, who new what kind of trouble he was in with the madman on top of him?

[Jha'rach D'Rinishad]

Raging eyes of alabaster glowed with the ferocity of a demons hearth; he did not move. Blind hatred for the race of man thundered into his body with strength of a dwarven hammer; yet he did not move. Anger filled his contemptuous soul with the blood of his lost love; and he remained unchanged. His vision clouded until all that remained was the untrained, sporadic movements of the human; until all that remained was his death. All that remained was the craving.

The human bounded toward him and Jha'rach did not move; any movement he made would alter the course of the human, disorient him further and make the vysstichi's task more difficult. He stood, strongly, defensively, coiled and ready. The man was like a rabid animal and the vysstichi had no doubt that his focus was poorly directed at everything but the drow. He had the capability to draw this out; play with the human and watch him froth about in the pit wildly; however the elf had entranced himself in a state which blades, fists and reasoning rarely touched. He was the hunter now. This Snoo; his prey. There was no thought of mercy, no thought of fun, only the singular need of his blood; his life.

The blind unhinged rage of the man had not affected the dark elf; it went unnoticed, the man himself went unnoticed; his antics; unnoticed; his body was the sole focus of the elf. Incognizant of everything except the movement. The human charged at the elf; and the first prince knew what his intent was, to pin him and thrash at him wildly on the ground. Yet the drow knew already his agility far outmatched that of the human.

His lithe body waited; his mind remained disconnected; all instinct; all reflex. He waited. Waited until the man was no more than a jump from him and smoothly his coiled body sidestepped the man; right. His body turned low, directly out of the line of the charge, yet, he came around; his body turning, his left fist coming into lock at his shoulder, in an act of supreme finesse he pivoted on the spot, using the opportunity to build some momentum. His body swung around the with speed only an elf of the prince's stature could posses; the elbow of the locked arm intending to meet the momentous onslaught of the infamous Snoo directly in the nose. The sharp elbow of the drow, carried by his hardened body, possessive of no little amount of strength and the momentum of the two colliding forces would surely prove to be an interesting display.

[Daemn K'rryl]

If it was blood Jha'rach wanted then it was blood the dark elf was going to get - preferably his opponent's but who was going to tell? One thing was for sure, and that was thus: a berserk fighter would not stop until unconcious, and try to win using any means necessary, so unless the drow managed to control and contain Snoo's blind rage he was going to be in a world of hurt.

So far, it seemed, he was doing quite well.

The crowd looked on in amusement as the regal, top-knotted dark elf stood perfectly still and silent in a very stark contrast to the rampaging fighter in the opposite corner. Some even wondered why the elf merely stood there as Snoo jumped into his attack, not a single spectator wishing to be in Jha'rach's position. They all knew true insanity when they saw it, and feared it, because true madness could drive a fist through a plank. If Snoo caught the drow unawares, he would literally tear his opponent apart.

However, it was not to be now... in a move that left some watchers flabbergasted by the incredible display of the signature elfish dexterity and speed, Jha'rach sidestepped, turned and whirled about elbow-first. A loud "Oooooohhhhhh" and a collective wince erupted from the crowd as the boned appendage came into direct and brutal contact with Snoo's nose. An audible crack rent the air, and the hooter was instantly spread across the berserker's face, but that was nothing compared to the shocking fountain of blood that erupted. Spraying out all over the dirt as the elbow made contact, the dark elf's arm was spattered with the dark fluid. As he saw the damage his arm had done his eyes seemed to glow red in turn, and he could feel the hate and bloodlust building up inside. For Snoo's part his head shot back as his body notinued in momentum, and it was lucky his neck didn't snap. However, he was completely, utterly and heavily coathangered, and after the time-stopping and sickening first moment he crashed heavily onto his back at Jha'rach's feet.

Now, any normal person would be down for the count, if not dead. However, now that he had worked himself up to a truly devillish level of insanity pain seemed foreign, no longer an issue. Never stopping moving even after almost being killed, he writhed and turned over on the ground, a scrawny hand shooting out and grabbing the drow's right ankle. Snoo yanked hard on it, and in an uncharacteristic loss of balance and diginity Jha'rach was pulled hard onto his arse. He now had Snoo at his feet - the dark elf on his back, the man on his stomach - and his opponent was trying to claw his way up to Jha'rach's face to deal some heavy damage with whatever came to his deranged mind.

OoC: Man it was so cool picturing that

[Jha'rach D'Rinishad]

The dark elf's unclouded mind fell into the uncommon serenity which followed the first blood of battle, that eternal calm which came to him during battle now shed all connections to time, place and situation. Collectively his thoughts merged into his most primal instincts and he became the hunter. He was the hunter. That calm, however was but an island amidst the turmoil which surged through his body in curiously unnatural strength, rage. The humans face was broken. He had split him open, spilling that crimson ecstasy which permeated the air, glossed the ground and saturated his skin. How akin to so many of his real and dreamt experiences, how he loved the taste, and indeed he had a taste for death, for the life he shed upon the ground. Rules; what blasphemy to his senses, what sacrilegious moralistic values these fools held. Such qualms he had not, it infuriated him, and even now, no thought of sparing this one's life filtered through the maelstrom of intense concentration which fed every move of the vysstichi prince.

Snapping the man's neck backwards, the vysstichi followed through, pressing the full of his brutal blow into the frothing man's visage. Hesitating not in the least he followed the man as he flew backward onto the ground. Surprisingly the man had recovered almost isntantly and the drow was left in a precarious situation, the man having grabbed his ankle and tripping him onto his backside, sitting, facing the now clawing and bloody man reaching up his legs.

Blood seeped from at least one of the orifices on the man's face and Jha'rach calmly overlooked the scene, completely disconnected. He watched as if he was an onlooker, as if time slowed and here a vysstichi sat looking down at a man, bloodied by the vysstichi's own blow... He looked at a dead man. He knew as he knew that all must die. This vysstichi was not fighting in conventional means, he was not exchanging blow for blow, he was deliverling blows to kill.

Jha'rach's free leg pulled backward, the taut muscle wrenching upward, his pliable flexible body offering the fullest range, his knee was quickly seated beside his face. Spread like a locust, the vysstichi's foot was point directly at the face of the clawing Snoo. The human was delerious in his mad rage, and very stupid. He had rejected the opportunity to raise himself above his opponent to stand and Jha'rach had no intention of letting him off easily for the miscalculation. He would pay dearly. With his foot level with the human's face, his foot arched and his leg fully retracted to offer the maximum drive and force of the blow, the vysstichi released the furiously driven leg towards the waiting Snoo. His heel aimed directly at the chin of the human.

Intent not only on driving his heel into the face of his opponent, a heel in the lower jaw from this angle could possibly unhinge the man's jaw and if a direct hit was scored he was likely going to knock the man unconscious. His blow could possibly at least serve to drive the man back long enough to gain his ground again.

OOC: Sorry for the delay, RL issues.

[Maddyn]

It was to be the shortest of the Tourney Fights it seemed as Shoo really wasn't the most tactical of fighters when the singular desire to cause Jha'rach a lot of pain was the only consideration in the Berserkers mind. Clawing his way towards Jha'rach, there was a glazed over expression on Shoo's bloodied face before things changed in such a fashion that Shoo's state of mind changed very quickly. Jha'rach's boot was raised and snapped downwards towards Shoo's head, a sickening crunch filling the air as the Vysstichi's foot firmly impacted against the Berserkers nose and broke it cleanly. Blood splattered upon the ground but Shoo seemed rather uninclined to care given his glazed over expression now lacked any signs of conciousness given he'd just been knocked out.

Kneeling over besides Shoo where he lay in a comatose state, the refereee began to count down ever so slowly and dragged out the "3!...2!....1!..." for what seemed like an absoulte eternity as if giving Shoo a rather unfair opportunity, a desire for the Berserker to return to a state where he could at least stand up again. If only to be knocked down again for the crowd's benefit as the sounds of cheering and booing filled the air depending upon which fighter they'd been vying for. "Aaaaaannnnd, Shoo's down for the count Ladies and Gentlemen! Weeee have a Winnnnner!!!" the Referee grudgingly explained with a broad smile as he stood up and rotated in a circle with one hand lowered to gesture at Jha'rach where he lay on the ground.

"Aaaaand, that's all folks until Round 2! Stay about while we clear this mess up for the next fighters!"

OOC:
Next round starting when the other two fights end.

Cheers, Maddyn