The Honor Circle Returns! (IC)

[Lisky]

The little long-tailed canid floated down in front of his face.  With information in had, Bas could only feel sorry for the poor girl.  If he had any idea whether or not she could handle the darker side of magic, he'd have gladly healed her.  As is, he could only get a slightly distraught look on his face, and listen to what the little imp had to say. 

He gave a nod of understanding, and a bit of a sheepish smirk, then replied, "I understand how she must feel, i felt somewhat similar myself not but a few minutes ago.  Perhaps waiting would be best..."

He considered his options, and, perhaps given Keaton's state as well, he wasn't the only one who'd made a total fool of them-self in the preceding hours.  "While we're waiting for the same person... perhaps you could tell me a little about your mistress, Xianxi... At least, i believe that is what she'd called you." Saying the name as close an intonation as he'd heard keaton say, while ordering the small creature around.

"Is there anything i should be worried about?... I mean, besides the obvious that you're quite protective of your mistress?"

[Sunblink]

Xianxi hummed quietly - not a musical sound, but a low thrum meant to convey the bare minimum of acknowledgment. Unfortunately, that was all the concession that he allowed himself to give. Xianxi, like most other living beings on Earth, could not survive an eternity of isolation, but the sentimental nuances of healthy human interaction were lost on him. Humorous jabs splintered like wooden swords against his impenetrable hide, emotional outbursts were observed with a disturbing lack of reception, and the strict monochrome of his world provided little for him to relate to in other individuals.

However, like almost any creature in existence, he could recognize the stinging of an injured pride, and if nothing else, he understood pragmatism. Basilisk was not just a temporary companion to preoccupy him until Keaton returned from vomiting the poisoned contents of her stomach, he was a potential bodyguard to protect him from any other groping fingers that decided to seize his tail. Xianxi's muzzle wrinkled at the thought – if he could express any emotions past a very limited range, he would almost smile in satisfaction at the brilliance of his plan.

Basilisk was still expecting an answer. Ducking past the more emotional tripe flavoring an otherwise point-blank inquiry, Xianxi inclined his head forward, closed his eyes, and let his thoughts dip into a more intent, meditative sense of contemplation. "Hm. Other than the obvious...?"

His ears perked, the exclamation mark at the end of his revelation, and he opened his pearlescent eyes to gaze into Basilisk's, unblinking. "No, I don't think you do, but I have some advice for the future. Don't grab my tail."

Xianxi had no intention of continuing. If Basilisk found their exchange to be engaging, he was more than welcome to decide the next direction of their conversation. An unproductive minute would have passed without the slightest bit of progress if it wasn't for the telltale click of a doorknob – Xianxi's nerves shot into overdrive, his ears swiveled upright, and his posture went completely stiff, bristling with energy. The door to the women's bathroom creaked open and Keaton swaggered out, looking slightly exhausted and bedraggled, but substantially healthier than she was before she ducked out of Xianxi's supervision. She didn't look drunk, anymore, at least, but she was no doubt regretting all the movements she made that sent her barreling through the bathroom doors in the first place.

Basilisk was momentarily forgotten, or at the very least abandoned. Xianxi shot through the air like a little black bullet, darting through Basilisk's horns and weaving over to his beleaguered mistress. Keaton automatically extended an arm, allowing Xianxi to perch on it like an attentive parrot, his tail wrapping around her forearm. "There you are, Xianxi..." she muttered. Her voice sounded like it came from a throat rubbed raw with sandpaper. Xianxi looked at her attentively.

"Are you alright, mistress?" he asked.

Keaton sighed. "I'm not seeing two of everything, so I think that I'm feeling better, at least..." she muttered, shooed Xianxi off her arm with a dismissive wave (he floated behind her head, not looking affronted in the slightest), and glanced around the bar – Basilisk fell within her crosshairs, and she brightened. It was only a languid transformation, though, and when she stumbled over to him she still looked tired.

"Hey..." she said, clapping her hand on Basilisk's shoulder, "Sorry about that."

[Lisky]

Baseel's reaction to the appearance of the beleaguered Keaton was to first straighten up, and attempt to put on a confident pose.  She approached with a stagger and he almost lunged forward to catch her, barely managing to hold back as she found her balance.  Her face seemed to light up subtlely... rather difficult to tell, given her current state.  Then, she grabbed him by the shoulder.  Her warm grip sending shivers down the demon's spine.  Was it lust that guided him, some misguided attempt at a romance... or simply a continued infatuation with a strange woman who managed to pique the demons interest... He concluded it to be the later, as his arm extending, and the hand, seemingly instinctively setting itself lightly on her midsection, just above her hip.  "I do believe it is I who is the one owing the apology.  Perhaps we should both sit down, before collapsing into a heap in the middle of the floor?"

He slowly let his hand slide across her back, careful to avoid actual bodily contact, merely letting the finger-tips slide over the edge of her jacket.  He began moving himself shoulder to shoulder, every so slightly guiding her towards the booths on the wall. He looked at the brightly colored jackal, a somewhat playful look in his eye.  He said in his, now usual, bemused tenor, "this might seem like an odd question, but, do you have any adverse reactions to dark-based magic?  I ask because i can do healing... however... given it's basis in dark magic... i'd rather not try to heal you, before asking, for i don't know what i'd do with myself if i'd cause you some rather unexpected adverse reaction."

[Boog]

The Circle

The book continued to dance oddly, on its black twiglike legs, twisting and twirling, before finally falling open. The pages ruffled, then began to flip, faster and louder until it sounded like the rush of the ocean. Or did the ocean sound like the pages?
Corgatha hadn't even realized that the scenery had changed. There was no tornado of scenery, no rushing noise, no pyrotechnics to announce the change of setting. The world had simply changed during some unnoticed moment between Then and Now. He was standing on an oil platform, a great edifice of steel and concrete rising from the ocean. The mainland was visible, albeit very, VERY far away. He stood at the edge of a hatchway to the tunnel of the central drill, and he could hear the echo of ruffling pages descending the shaft before him...
And there was this sensation, from below him. Some sort of pressure on his mind. Some immense FORCE, deep beneath the seabed...
It seemed... Expectant.

--

The Aircraft Carrier

Boog grinned, vanishing again. He had this kid right where he wanted him. Just a step forward and-
PRESSURE.
He stopped, leaving himself open, and a blast of water caught him squarely in the jaw with a sound like shattering glass. When he looked up there were cracks along his face, like he was made of some manner of porcelain, and patterns of light leaked from the missing chips in his chin.
More worrisome was his blank expression. Completely emotionless, like he'd dropped his mask.
"I surrender."
He was walking away before the aircraft carrier had even finished melting away, trying to get to the other circle in time.
"No, don't do that, don't fight him, he's not supposed to be OUT yet, DON'T-!"
The Boogeyman reached the other circle in time for the anti-interference shield to finish solidifying.
"... Aw hell."

--

Outside the Bar

Richard cocked his head, listening curiously. He'd seen distress. She'd mentioned dying, but she sure as hell didn't smell undead. Finally he nodded.
"Sounds safe enough if there's two of us." He nodded to Dani dispassionately, "Hell, I'd feel safe. But fine, no killin', fight to the knockout or surrender, one on one. Sounds good." He drew his axe out of his belt loop and gestured to the circles. "Whenever you're ready. Me first or...?" He glanced at Dani, "Sorry, what was your name again?"

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

There wasn't even the sense of transition, the single step taken when Traveling. Still, the shock was relatively minor, certainly nothing enough to make him lose his grip on the Power. He could smell salt, and a tang of sea air that he associated with the left wing of the Seanchan campaign as he gallivanted around the coast, burning supply dumps. It brought a smile to his face for a brief second, before the tactician part of his brain took over.

He looked around, noticed he was on some sort of odd iron platform, making a whirring and slamming noise that was totally alien to him.  He could see the mainland, barely, off to his left. And there was some invisible, but palpable sense of menace, rising up from the depths. He paced the platform, snarling. He could feel an odd kind of rock, but it wasn't something he'd ever seen before, held together on some principle that he was sure he'd be able to understand, but he doubted he'd have time for study. And other than that, the only stone was what he had carried with him, and that seemed rather puny to place against an unknown adversary.

Without enough material to encase himself, and not knowing from whence the assault would come precluded an air shield, or at least rendered it impractical. Going down the hatch into the light knows where also seemed a bad idea, negating his reach. He didn't know the area, and he couldn't make the mainland out well enough to use a shorter Traveling gate to get there.

Corgatha spent a moment thinking, and then retreated to the center of the platform, and increasing his grip on the power from a trickle to a rush, although not quite at his maximum capacity; that was too hard to hold without using. Instead, he just studied the area as well as he could and kept his ears open, hoping to hop over to the mainland if he wasn't interrupted long enough to complete his survey.

[Angel]

Dani listened when Azshanas answered what had been...well, one restriction of hers, anyway, but she'd actually assumed that as a given. The rest of what she'd said, though, didn't make sense. She guessed that it was mostly some of the woman's personal history, but she couldn't figure out what was behind her words. Why would she share such details with two total strangers? Two total strangers who were about to fight her, no less...

When the undead man spoke up, the correctional officer blinked and jerked her head up. She'd been spacing out while she thought things over, and couldn't say for sure whether she had honestly dozed off for a second. "Oh, it's Dani. Well, Danielle Sanders, actually, but most people call me Dani."

-----

Sylvie watched the group outside and Corgatha with interest, but also kept an ear open to the conversations in the bar. If interesting things weren't constantly going on around her, she could almost have said she was bored.

[Dekari]

Azshanas put the guitar pick back into the pocket she got it from, wiped her eyes, and gave a quick glance over to the ring that the Boogeyman ran to in a momentary question of 'what was that all about?' before looking back to Richard.  "Well, seems you're first.  Though I must admit, I'm not really looking forward to this.  You remind me too much of them."  She said to Richard not realizing that he and Dani didn't know who 'them' referred to.

Turning away from Richard and Dani, Azshanas walked to the far side of the ring, the black mist that made up her wings left behind a trail in the air with each step before quickly fading.  "I had actually hoped to never use this weapon again."  She said as she walked.  She raised her right hand, which has slowly become engulfed in more black mist, to eye level and stared at it.  "But you seem eager to use that axe of yours, so I'm left with no choice but to arm myself as well.  And I guess it's now just another part of myself I will have to learn to live with."  She finished with a sigh as she reached the far side of the ring.  Turning again to face the two, Azshanas kneeled down and put her right hand on the ground.  The mist quickly spread from her hand and formed a six-foot diameter circle of mist on the ground.  As she stood up, what looked to be a pair of small dragon horns slowly came up from the mist followed by a metallic looking dragon skull.  The skull was rust colored with splatters of dried blood all over it.  Upon seeing this Azshanas closed her eyes and turned her head away with a look of shame, disgust, and fear on her face.  The weapon continued to rise up from the mist, the dragon skull was apart of a four and a half foot long curved scythe blade.  The blunt part of the blade was dark black steel and the sharpened part was as brilliant as polished silver.  There was a flicker of dark blue light from one of the eye sockets of the metal skull and it seemed as though a ghostly eye looked out at Richard and Dani for a moment before vanishing.  Azshanas looked back at the weapon just as the second blade, identical to the first, at the bottom of the six foot shaft emerged from the mist.  As the mist on the ground dissipated Azshanas reached up to the weapon but hesitated for a moment.  She took a deep breath and grabbed the double-ended scythe almost expecting something bad to happen but gave a sigh of relief a moment later when nothing happened.

"Remember, once we start, we got five minutes.  Lets see if we can make it entertaining enough to keep Dani here awake."  Azshanas said with a playful grin.

[Boog]

The Oil Platform

The sea breeze was actually rather pleasant, even with the processed smell of oil tinging it. Seagulls called in the distance.
Unfortunately, whatever else there was here seemed disinterested in waiting for Corgatha.
A deep "CLONG!" rose from the center drill shaft, and echoed, garbled speech could be heard coming up the shaft. The words "thousand" and "slimey things" could be made out. Another "CLONG" rumbled it's way up the shaft, closer...

--

The Circle

"Pleasure to meet you Dani. I'm assuming one of us will need a drink after this. Whoever does better against her doesn't pay, sound good?" Richard rasped, stepping into the circle without giving her the chance to reply.
He swung the axe in one hand, letting the head of it come to rest near his ankle. Really, in terms of how it was wielded the damn thing was more like a sledgehammer that had been sharpened on one side. Incredibly awkward to use, but he was no adventurer or hero. He wasn't typically someone who sought out armed fights.
But he'd noticed that this woman was sharing a lot of her past for a stranger, too, and he was curious. Was she trying to confess to something, or take credit for it, or what? There was some sort of DAMAGE here, and it intrigued him.
The dead man focused on the ideal battlefield for this, studying her weapon...
The circle conjured and whirled, reality shaping within it. Azshanas and Richard were standing on an immense stage, roughly the size of a football field. Props were scattered haphazardly, the set looked like some sort of medival castle. Before them sat the orchestra, faceless and expectant.
"Never been one to fear the reaper." Richard swing the axe up, got a two handed grip on it and readied himself for her charge. "Come on, then!"

[Dekari]

"Oh...oh wow."  Azshanas said looking about.  She had let go of her scythe and started to walk away as it tilted and fell to the ground, hitting with a loud and heavy clang.  "This is incredible."  She said with a laugh.  It was odd, it seemed as though there was a completely different energy about her...she was to say the least, happy.

Azshanas walked a few feet to one side of her scythe than a few to the other side all while looking around trying to take in all what just happened with a rather large smile on her face and an excited laugh in her voice.  "Oh what was that, a teleport?  No, couldn't have been a teleport, I can still sense Dani's mind as though it was only twenty feet away."  She said aloud having completely forgotten why she was there.  "No wait, could it have been....yeah, it was just like...oh my lord..." she paused as she spun to look straight at Richard, "that was just like a full temporal and spatial shift!"  She yelled with excitement.  "But to do something like that, someone would have to be really powerful.  Oh man, I so have to mee..."  She stopped herself mid-sentence as she locked eyes with Richard and she remembered what was supposed to be happening.

"Oh yeah.  We are supposed to be fighting."  Azshanas said with a slight laugh as she stared the timer on the stopwatch while walking over to her scythe.  "I'm sorry, I guess I just got caught up in the thing about these rings.  It's just..."  She said as she kneeled down and reached to grab her scythe but was interrupted when she took hold of it.  The eye sockets of the dragon skulls were set ablaze with pale blue flames.  Azshanas shut her eyes tight and grit her teeth in pain.  Her arm tensed and flexed as though it were trying to wrench back and let go to escape the pain, but it was unable to.  After a few moments, her body relaxed as the pain seemed to subside.  With her eyes still closed, she let out a sigh; her demeanor seemed to have reverted back to what had been.  "Sometimes I wish all of this was nothing more than a bad dream that I could wake up from."  When she finished she was off at a full sprint towards Richard.  Her were now open and irises glowing.  She held herself forward and low as she ran, the top blade scythe she had taken in her right hand dragging behind her carving a splintered scar in the wood floor of the stage.  As she approached Richard she took the scythe and used it as a sort of pull-vault to assist with a jump.  Scythe still in hand, she raised it high above her head for a downward slash.  "I wish I could wake up from this living nightmare and end this suffering!"


The display on the stopwatch showed 4:33.06

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

Water, water everywhere, and every light blasted drop useless. He could easily hear the clanging coming up from the main shaft, and he turned to face it, backing away until he was a goodly distance from it. The smell of the sea air was pleasant though, even befouled by the rank scent of the oil. Birds flocked overhead, but he tuned out their cries.

After a second's consideration, he reached in and plucked out two of his casting stones, and with a brief burst of the Power, he moved them to the mouth of the shaft, after working them over to detonate with a final push of Saidin. Anything that would come out of there could be safely blown up as it clawed its way to the surface.

[Angel]

Watching the fights from the ouside, Dani decided, was infinitely more interesting when you sat right outside the circle itself. She was able to see everything that went on, and she was learning a lot about how to fight Azshanas. Okay, so far she seems to be a hand-fighter. If he is what I think he is, drinks are on the dead guy tonight...

[[NOTE: CLEAR! *BZZZT*]] 

[Boog]

(OOC: I... LIIIIIIIIIIIVE!)

Life's a Stage

Richard sidestepped Azshanas attack neatly, immediately giving ground and making his way back toward a cluster of props. Typical plywood "bushes", the same as the "clouds" hanging above them, painted green rather than white. Something rustled behind the curtains. If this was a stage, was there a stage crew? Already the orchestra launched into some classical, floor-rumbling concierto. The sort of music that needs cannonfire in the background.
Richard raised his axe, ready to block any oncoming attacks. He was a simple man of simple talents, and he was NOT rushing into combat with someone who apparantly was able to keep their scythe in their sleeve. He was no mage. He needed to find his footing.

--

And a thousand thousand slimy things...

It rose from the drilling shaft with an almost casual ominousness. There was no halo of light, no wings, no roar of jets. This THING, made of seaweed and cast iron and rubber tubing and sealskin, wide as a man and tall as an enraged bear, simply had little regard for such simple things as gravity. It rose as if on invisible rails suspended in the air.
The grating on its helmet turned to face Corgatha, behind which light pulsed like an irregular heartbeat. Its left hand, gripping an anchor, raised itself...

--

The Bar

"Damn." The Boogeyman said, turning to go back inside.
"Damn."
"Damn damn damn damn damn damn..." He skulked his way toward the back room, reaching under the counter to grab a bottle with cartoonish green fairies on the label on the way. "Damn damn damn damn DAMN..."

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

Corgatha took a long hard look at the thing that climbed out of the shaft. Rose, really, he saw no evidence it was hauling itself up. Bigger than a person, roughly Trolloc sized, holding an anchor casually in its left fist.


No indication of supernal powers, although he'd bet old carrots to king's horses that the thing possessed some form of theurgy. Identification became the highest priority. He detonated the two rocks, shielding himself from the shrapnel in a half-reflexive shrug of power that endless usage had banished from the forward consciousness of his brain.

As an afterthought, he started backing away from the foe, and sent a minor Delving weave into the anchor. He wasn't as good with metal as he was with stone, but there was a decent chance if he could identify the composition, he could wrest the thing away from it. Or he could if it didn't have some special means of holding on.

[Dekari]

The blade of Azshanas' scythe crashed into the stage where Richard has been standing just a moment before sending splinters of wood flying.  She gave a sigh that sounded as though she were relieved that Richard evaded her attack.  Closing her eyes, she began to hum to the music that was now playing as she lazily freed the blade of her scythe from the stage.  Upon freeing the blade she opened her eyes and began examining it.  "You know, I guess I had you figured wrong.  I pegged you as the kind of person who would go head long into a fight without hesitation.  I mean, you've already apparently faced death once, what's there left to fear?"  She said giving Richard a glance out of the corner of her eye.

With a satisfied nod, Azshanas took the scythe and held it with both hands horizontally in front of her and with a quick flick of her wrists and a muffled 'click', she pulled the scythe apart at the middle into two weapons.  There was a crackling sound as a string of seething energy spilled from tge shaft end in her left hand onto the ground and then up to the other shaft in her right hand linking the two together.  Azshanas let the 'half' scythe slip out of her right hand and as her hand approached the energy 'string' it parted so as to allow her to grasp a string or chain that was not there.  Taking up the slack on the floor, she began to spin the half over her head, gradually increasing the circle in size and speed.  "Word of advise, standing still is not advisable from this time forward.  I've never been good with moving targets."  She said to Richard with a grin as she let go the blade at him, the energy 'string' increasing in length indefinitely as the blade seemed to gain speed as it flew.


The display on the stopwatch showed 3:07.24