H130, Day 184, 11 AP (Open)

[Stix]

For several blocks around, the Hive Ward is alive with noise. Raucous drunkards, street gangs, and barmies show the best of what the ward has to offer.

At the center of the mayhem sits a cluster of warehouses, condemned by city ordinance decades ago. While most are home to squatters and vagrants, one toward the middle, known as the Blood Pit, is infamous for its fighting arena (and, to a lesser extent, for its overpriced beer tap).

To enter the establishment is disorienting at best. The arena -- nothing more than an uneven, roughly circular pit carved out of the center of the warehouse -- is well-lit by hanging lanterns overhead, but the rest of the place gets by with only the residual light. Constant cheers and jeers, the overpowering smell of blood, and the frenetic energy in the air assault the senses, opening eyes wide and dropping jaws.

"Evenin', cutter," says a grinning tiefling to each entrant crossing the threshold. "Ain't seen yeh here before. Y'here to drink, fight, or watch?"

[john]

John, his expression hidden behind the vulture helm, says one word, and one alone. Even this one comes grudging from his gravelly throat.

"Fight."

[Stix]

The fiendling's grin broadens, the glint of a passing torch reflecting in his empty black eyes. "Good. You oughta spill blood nicely. Lotsa promoters in the crowd; find one to organize your fight. Best of luck."

He asks as an afterthought, "By the by, yeh fighting with chivs, or fists, or...." He trails off, drawing a finger across his throat.

[john]

Recites, as if from a manual of arms, or some book of martial philosophy "I fight with my sword. Or my fists. Or whatever else is available. But I prefer to be at blade's length. I don't use... magic. If that's what you're implying. In a one-on-one fight, it sullies the feel."

John lumbers forward, looking for the promoters. Or rather, looking for one to happen upon him, his ugly, short little plug-form sticking out primarily because of the various weapons that festoon him, the stylized vulture-helm, and his own rather pugnacious set of jaw and stance.

[Stix]

A ham-sized hand clamps down on John's armored shoulder; he turns to get a faceful of the stinking breath of a huge, scarred orc. A noise rumbles deep in his throat as he bares his teeth in a crooked sort of grimacing smile.

"Bareknuckle, first blood, or free-for-all?"

[john]

"Whatever pays the best, and gets the crowd goin. I prefer blades but I'll fight however they'll have me."

John grimaces right back at the orc. He's never seen an orc, before. He marks it down as some sort of green-skinned tiefling.

[Stix]

The orc grunts as he nods, scraping something from one of his jutting lower canines. "You want to be loved, hated, or feared?" he asks, trying to decide where it would be best to start the newcomer.

[john]

"I'm too ugly to be loved, too straightforward to be hated, so being feared would be best." John nods to himself, and gestures to his vulture-helm expressively. "You don't wear kit like this in order to seen a friendly face, to be sure."

[Stix]

"Then you might kill a berk before the night's out," says the promoter with a twisted, snarling grin. "Wait here. I'll go find someone else green to step in with you." The orc muscles his way through the crowd, visible now and then in the sea of faces.

While John waits, two desperate sods clumsily thump their fists into one another in the ring. After trading blows with little effect, they lock arms and begin to wrestle in close quarters. One knocks his forehead against the other's teeth, and flecks of blood fly from both points of impact. After some more stumbling and cursing, one of them takes the upper hand, forcing the other one's head down and dropping an elbow into his shoulder, following it with a vicious haymaker to the back of his opponent's skull. The crowd shows some appreciation, though it's clear that this is hardly the main event for the night.

The orc reappears after the fight ends. "If you're as tough as you look, the next match is the one you want to get into. It's to move from the green bracket up to blue -- and like everything, the higher you rank, the more jink you earn. You ready?" As an afterthought, he adds "What do you call yourself?"

[john]

"If I kill 'em, he can't tell anyone about how hard I hit him..." He nods about green to blue, and asks, "What are the color codes?"

"Yeah, I'm ready." John's eyes narrow to slits, and he says, " Call me.... hm. Call me the taker of Blood."

[Stix]

"Right," the orc says, watching as two aides step in to carry the unconscious loser out of the arena and a third begins to remove a few loose stones, garbage, and broken teeth. "Rule of threes applies -- three ranks in every class, three classes in every bracket, three brackets. You start off in colors: green-blue-purple, red-orange-yellow, white-gray-black. Second bracket's named after metals, third after precious stones."

He takes a breath as he prepares to explain further, but notices that the arena is clear. "Get in there. Impress the crowd. Kill. If they beg for mercy, you don't hear them."

[john]

"Right."

John lurches into the arena, drawing his bastard sword and holding it in two hands. He waits for his opponent to appear, breathing steadily, regularly. He makes no performance for the fans. Not yet. Only takes up the ready stance of an experienced swordsman, prepared to risk his life on the first cut.

When his opponent approaches, he will meet it's eyes, and hopefully not flinch, his dull brown orbs revealing nothing but a sort of slow-burn hatred of the Hive, place that birthed him, and everything within it. Here, he can kill with sanction. Here... he can let all the pain, all the low-level irritations, every piece of life that doesn't go his way flood out of him in a destructive flurry.

And he waits. [dice=20+7] (intimidate)
[rand=7513709981835318317421129342988353297424162618054139203655362155]

[Uathach Blackmantle]

A cloaked figure of average height, and slender stature, emerges from the grey fog, and slips through the noisy crowd gathered out front of the warehouse. Veiled eyes and a hidden grin survey the shabby entrance, the doorman, and the drunks gathered inside.

"Evenin' cutter." A woman's voice replies to the fiendling, and she flashes a grin at him from the shadows of her cowl. "Jist 'ere to drink an' watch fer the time bein'." Then doffing her hood with a steel shod leather gauntlet, bound about the knuckles with short spikes and a coil of barbed wire, she replies with a wink. "Maybe I'll even fight, if'n it strikes me fancy."

She steps inside then, tossing her head to shake the rain-drops from her cropped, shaggy mane of soft pink hair. Her hands lower in a casual gesture to coiled whip, and sheathed rapier, still hidden beneath the folds of her black baladrana.

She carefully weaves through the drunken crowd, mindful of stepping on toes or brushing past thieving hands, searching for the bar, and the best place to sit, and watch the fight; or anything else that might catch her eye.

[Stix]

A clear tenor voice calls out from somewhere within the crowd nearest the ring. To whom it belongs is unclear.

"Tonight's No-Mercy Green challenge is about to begin! Already in the arena is a newcomer to the Pit: welcome the Taker of Blood!" The crowd erupts with applause. "This ambitious arrival demands the right to kill! We give him the opportunity, but will he seize it?

"Our second challenger is the Stone Prince Goled!" calls the announcing voice. The crowd responds well, though not with the same zeal, as an earth genasi emerges from among the observers. His build is blocky and angular, as though he were rough-hewn from a quarry, and both the maul in his hands and the half-plate armor he wears are etched with some sort of runic language. "A rising name in the fist-fighting circuit, Goled has decided to prove that he's equally dangerous when armed!

"Next up is Jiring Callerin!" The longsword-bearing human in studded leather looks like little more than a common street thug; the audience replies with mixed applause and condemnation. "Given mercy in his last match, he's recovered and ready to put someone else into the dead-book this time through!"

"And last of all, but certainly not the least...." The crowd's sudden hush is slightly offputting. "You know his chiv well from First Blood, and now he's ready to take to the killing floor... Khassein, the Mad Gith!" A hardened, severe githzerai arrives on the scene to the deafening roar of the crowd. Half-visible beneath the disarrayed hair clinging to his forehead is an inked symbol of the Xaositects. Clad in brigandine armor and carrying a scimitar, he readies himself in a position similar to John's.

"Combatants: this is a fight to the finish, whether that finish is by death or surrender. On the signal, you fight to kill!

"Ready..." says the voice, the crowd silent with anticipation....

(Please include an Initiative roll after your next post. Since this combat's just us, we can take it one round at a time.)

[john]

John doesn't tense. Instead, he relaxes, waiting for the battle to come to him, this time, instead of wading in himself. He keeps back, and tries to analyze the skills of those who he's facing off against, unleashing a single cut, brutal and two-handed, at anyone who closes the distance with him. (readied standard action.) He doesn't want to show anything spectacular, not yet, instead going for a general analysis of the skill of the foes who are before him. He can decide who to pick off first after that. (Move equivalent sense motive check.)

(roll=1d20+1) init.
(roll=1d20+11) to hit
(roll=1d20+7) sense motive.
(roll=1d10+8) damage

[john]

[dice=20+1] init.
[dice=20+11] to hit
[dice=20+7] sense motive.
[dice=10+8] damage
(Me smart like rock!)

[Stix]

Targets:

Goled - 1 Jiring, 2 Khassein, 3 John
[dice=3]
Jiring - 1 Goled, 2 Khassein, 3 John
[dice=3]
Khassein - N/A[rand=4019733607839475402000764618428736955752853562638645317240087739]

[Stix]

Initiative

Goled
[dice=20]
Jiring
[dice=20+3]
Khassein
[dice=20+8][rand=43221974828521576108018786494683633591081092470323114773712398184]

[Stix]

Attack Rolls

Jiring vs. John
[dice=20+5]
Goled vs. Jiring
[dice=20+7][rand=524864394404421932320085940749981067509919145115656010153778803]

[Stix]

Damage Rolls

Jiring vs. John
[dice=8+6]
Goled vs. Jiring
[dice=10+6][rand=565590911901986784938080182008656071780914730247413014177647927]