(CRP): Mostly Harmless

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Silence

(CRP): Mostly Harmless

Post by Silence »

Alder didn't know why, but the old man gave him the chills. He set off his sense for danger like few other people ever did anymore. His instincts knew, even if he himself didn't know for certain, this man was at least a match for him.

But damn, it had been a while since he'd fought somebody strong enough to actually keep up with him. Usually he dedicated only about two or three percent of his total focus to any fight. It wasn't that he was trying to gauge how much stronger he was than other people, it was just that he got bored very easily. His mind wandered and mid fight, he'd be considering a hundred and one things other than the fight itself. If a king threw a sword down from a dragon into a cold lake, how much would the entropy of the universe increase by? What was the going rate for Oranges in Widu these days? If you transcribed a demonic spell into celestial rather than abyssal and attempted to cast it, what would happen? What would be the most profitable place for Widu's underground to hit that still wouldn't end up with the town guard coming down on their heads? A hundred other questions that were each considered and answered every minute moved through the changeling's head. When he had so many other things that he wanted to consider, it was incredibly difficult for Alder to really take an idiot flailing a pointy bit of metal around totally seriously.

For all that, he actually enjoyed fighting. He enjoyed pitting himself against another person, figuring out how they moved, what they were going to do and then figuring out the perfect set of movements to counter them. He enjoyed working his way into an enemy's mind, figuring out what they expected him to do and then not doing it. Alder's fighting style relied on being unpredictable, reading his opponents and doing exactly what they thought he wouldn't do. He'd straight up let a man stab him just to grab his wrist and drive a fist into his stomach... but why bother when he could practically flick most enemies away as if they were nothing but fleas? Why bother being clever in a fight when you could move faster than most people could even see? Alder had spent hundreds of hours in the training ground and the arena, and every hour was multiplied fifty fold by the amount of time he then spent considering every move he'd made and every move he'd seen another person make, not to mention that he could consider a lot of things in a very short space of time.

In three years, he'd become one of the better fighters out there. Yes, not the best... that honor belonged to Rieron, Aingeal, Logo, maybe Scarlet or somebody else who'd been fighting for a bit longer than he had. Still, he'd probably be more than a match for his old mentor, Reaver by now.

And still, every so often, somebody came along who still made his sense for danger start to give him little warnings... and this old man, the guy who claimed to be harmless, was one of them. So, Alder had decided to see how dangerous in the safest way he knew. Challenge the old guy to a duel and see how well he did. Fortunately, the old guy was up for the idea and totally ok with having a duel to severe injury.

So, Alder strapped a pair of daggers to his side, one of which was the ruby encrusted thing that Zachrin had given him and checked his pocket dimension one last time before accelerating himself to near the speed of sound and almost instantly appearing in the arena. Yes, that was unnecessary, but it served as a warm up, a mental exercise to remind him that he'd actually need to focus on this if he was going to get anything out of it.

He then grinned and shifted his weight from foot to foot as he waited for the old guy.

If nothing else, this was going to be fun for a while.

At that time, he had no idea what he was getting himself in for. If he had known, he probably would have been grinning like a fool all day in anticipation.
Krail

Re: (CRP): Mostly Harmless

Post by Krail »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdw_G9I5bKI

Twice a squrriel, three drops of childrens tears and a burnt out book. He grinned happily holding the three in his hands, life needed only to be simple for him as everything else, every other world he had experienced. So he would take pleasure in small things like this, insanity being on the list. The problem with most people is they had little life outside of fighting, they moved on from one drama to the next. One fairy tale after the next, Krail had lost the interest in those, he simply saw things as they were. People gaining power for their individual need then dying from that power or from old age.


He walked over to the duelling arena with an assortment of walking sticks attached to his back, some looked like old oak whilst others glimmered in the light of the sun.

'I can finally test out these canes !" he said with victory in his voice. "No longer will I be hassled by one that is to heavy or to fragile !"

He walked onto the centre ring and tilted his head slightly at Alder. 'Oh your giving me a headache already..'

He placed each cane on the floor infront of him, he broke a rune which gave off a quick flash then nothing. Nothing seemed to have happened. He stared intently at the broken rune and muttered a few words of encouragement to it before picking up his first cane, a fragile looking oak cane.

"Haha, engarde !"
Silence

Re: (CRP): Mostly Harmless

Post by Silence »

"Ok... whut? How am I-"

Oh hell, they were starting. Alder shifted his stance slightly so that he was standing side on to the old man as his opponent did something or other with a rune...

Alder focused on what was going on. Ok, that rune there... it was a small thing, not easy to read at this distance, so he dedicated about a hundred beetles to reading it. It was going to...

He had no idea what that rune did, so he instantly went on the defensive, taking half a step back and gathering force from his pocket dimension. Then the rune gave off a flash of light and the changeling drew both of his daggers at once, the weapons finding their place in the palms of his hands before the flash had even faded away. Ok, he was ready... now, the old guy was... not making any use of the distraction and talking to the rune?

Well, whatever.

"Yeah, sure, old man... whatever that means, sure."

With that, Alder accelerated himself to about half the speed of sound and in the blink of an eye was behind Krail, daggers flashing towards the older man. Of course, fights like this wouldn't be settled in one blow like that, but unless he pushed the old guy at least a little, he'd never establish what his limits were or how he was likely to react to other movements. It was as good of a starting move as any.
Krail

Re: (CRP): Mostly Harmless

Post by Krail »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZZDnlAg3Pk ((Cos why not make it sound epic))

Krail blinked and the boy was gone, he felt the shift in the air behind him it had felt like a faint breeze pushed against him. He quite casually knelt to the floor (( (if) assuming that evades the initial strike)) his cloak covered part of the floor. Pain meant little to the ancient, it was merely a means to remember to stay alive, his cloak came floating up and protuding from it was his cane. Ready to offer a swift yet not lethal uppercut at Alder (If it hits, take note that if it does hit the cane will break)

"Nature does not hurry yet everything is accomplished"

His mind wondered to the purpose of this duel was, had it been to distract his mind from the long history of the worlds or maybe he wanted to relive a moment when he was younger. No, such was outrageously out of character for him. He wanted to test out his cane and as it was rare to find anyone willing to fight an old man, he'd taken Alders desire to become stronger and used it for his own purpose. He doubted he could properly cause an severe blow with a cane however his evading abilities were still on par with any youngster, they simply lacked the energy draining rolls and dramatic dives.
Silence

Re: (CRP): Mostly Harmless

Post by Silence »

*Thunk*

Alder stopped his own swing before it passed over the old man and left him exposed and was ready to get the hell out of Krail's danger zone, the range in which he could strike without moving. But then again, here he was still behind him and at an advantage. Alder swung his leg around, meaning to kick the old man's legs from under him when the cane came seemingly out of nowhere, covered by the man's cloak for most of the swing. Focused as he was on trying to figure out the old man's tells, Alder was a bit too slow to evade the blow, and then by the time he realised what was about to happen, he opted to allow the blow to hit him rather than attempt to dodge and maybe make it worse than it had to be.

So, since when did old men hit as hard as a charging mamoth, eh?

Alder had meant to jump and spin his body backwards, to let himself be knocked to the floor, his body following the motion of the blow to lessen the impact. He did just that and was up on his feet again in moments with quite a nasty looking bruise under his jaw and apparently with a few teeth missing.

Well, that wouldn't do... he needed those to eat things. A moment later, a few beetles rearranged themselves, giving his face the look of something crawling under his skin, and any damaged creatures were replaced with new ones, any trace of the blow disappearing.

"Hmm, interestin technique yeh got there, old guy... was my chin meant teh break yer stick?"

He shook his head, then accelerated himself again, this time moving some distance away and to the old man's left. In the place he had occupied a moment ago was left a small sky blue crystal that rapidly evaporated... air that Alder had compressed and stored in his pocket dimension so that he could later take that force back from it. When he finished his motion, his daggers were back at his side and replaced by two made of his own bone, which he hurled at the old guy and then moved again, creating two more daggers and throwing those two. The third time he reappeared, he created another crystal of air, then simply fired it at the old man, using the force of its own expansion to fling it towards him. Each projectile moved three times the speed of an arrow loosed by a long bow and carried with it far more momentum than they should have even at that speed.

Alder was not exactly going all out yet, he wanted to get a feel for his opponent first, otherwise he could easily waste a lot of the force he had on blows that were doomed to miss. That said, this was significantly more than he would have dedicated to some fool flailing a sword or a knife around.
Krail

Re: (CRP): Mostly Harmless

Post by Krail »

Krails eye adjusted to the movement of Alder, magic..such crude and lacklustre ability. It didn't matter what magic did whether it enchanced, stored or simply destroyed. Something coming from nothingness meant little to Krail, the pain simply wouldn't register willingly. He found himself curious as the boy threw bone like daggers, had he made those on the spot ?

In the few seconds he had he decided to move in the path of one of the daggers and let it catch itself into his hand whilst the other sailed harmlessly past. He looked down, blood trinkling down from his wounded hand. "Bone...mmm maybe if I use this.." before he could finish two more daggers came flying towards him, the boy had spirit but then the young often did and it could just as easily disappear once the steam was blown.

Krail changed his direction that he was facing and let both daggers sail past him barely cutting through his cloths. "Now...which is it again.." he mumbled. His eyes were swift to see the movement, without portraying any emotion he flicked his little finger and for a split second the shine of a string appeared tied to his fingers, from behind him one of the canes layed out on the floor came effortlessly into his hand.

"Magic is a worthlerss unreliable tool, the second you lose your focus it works against you." he took one step forward and reflected the crystal back at Alder with such ease. Still his face remained neutral as he flicked a few other fingers. Two other canes came swinging around like scissors. "But you can't escape time".

Depending on Alders action Krail was most likely set to slowly close in the distance to offer the young man another whack on the head to test the strength of the cane.
Silence

Re: (CRP): Mostly Harmless

Post by Silence »

The reflection of the crystal surprised him. He didn't even know it was possible to redirect that much force at will... not in under a second. Not without using an awful lot of energy. The crystal passed straight through him and impacted on the far wall, where it finally broke down entirely, leaving nothing but a crater in the wall to show that it had ever existed as the small hole in Alder's chest closed up again. The changeling blinked, then started to laugh.

"Time eh?"

With how slowly they moved, the changeling had plenty of time to simply lower himself slightly to avoid them and then instantly back off from below them. That said, he still waited until the last moment to do so. Moving too quickly would only cause Krail to adjust his attack. Much like the old man himself, Alder moved only slightly to evade the two canes, then moved a lot more rapidly to get himself clear of them.

From his perspective, the world simply continued to spin for a moment, but didn't take him with it... the result was that he again moved surprisingly quickly away from any immediate danger. After all, against somebody capable of telekinesis, standing with your head directly under something wasn't a great idea.

"Time's all well and good, but I tried muckin around with it once... it was too easy teh play with. Fate, Time, the lot of it's connected, and I've managed teh escape it I don't know how many times... yeah, it keeps tryin teh catch me, and I keep stayin one step ahead."

He performed a mock bow as he spread his pocket dimension around the arena.

"Pleased tah meetcha... name's Alder, and I earned the title 'Anomaly' the hard way... still, muckin around with time just feels like yer goin too far teh solve yer problem. Magic at least, yer playin by the same rules as everybody else, so that's sort of more fair."

So long as Krail was talking, he was giving away more of his signs, giving Alder more information on when he was going to attack, where he was vulnerable. The longer this went on for, the more chance Alder had of winning, so long as he could avoid burning through the supplies in his pocket dimension.

"So, why are yeh even botherin teh take me up on the duel, eh? I'm curious."

The old guy advanced and Alder simply moved himself again, staying about five metres from the old guy at all time and randomly appearing in different directions to him. After three seconds of this, the changeling struck again, this time wielding a table leg and swinging towards the old man's torso as he accelerated himself forwards to close the gap. As usual, he came at an angle. Krail had shown that he could adjust to that, but that still meant that he'd take a fraction of a second longer to defend himself, and when you were fighting a weaponmaster, those fractions of seconds started to matter.

The attack itself was only a ruse, however. His real attack came from the dagger that Krail had caught. A non magical item, a piece of changeling bone, a small swarm of beetles holding tightly to one another and concealing what they were by mimicking bone. It could easily be something else too... no magic was required, it was simply a matter of sending commands to the beetles by chemical signals and high pitched sounds, inaudible to the human ear.

'Some of you mimic a knockout drug and the rest of you reform yourselves into needles. Add one to the other, prick him and we'll let 'time' do the rest for us.'

Of course, something as complex as a drug wasn't a simple thing to make... fortunately, Alder knew enough about drugs and poisons to at least advise his beetles on how to make a fairly weak one and then triple its potency... with any luck, that would be enough if mixed with enough time. If he wasn't lucky, it would at least slow the old guy's reflexes a bit... provided it worked.

((Feel free to godmod as you see fit.))
Krail

Re: (CRP): Mostly Harmless

Post by Krail »

"Dabbled in Time...fate..magic...what odd things you say. In this world I believe the mages created it..how I don't quite know yet the beginning and end of worlds are usually shrouded in darkness..however what is certain is life..death and the time in between. You cannot alter these, only flow with it. I am the Dragon of this story, the noble elf that defends..the evil devil that grants your wish..I am everything..I can choose to be whatever I like..." he adored retelling the tales that had once lived and would again be retold with different people.

"Life is a repetition and in this world, all life is a tragic tryanny of what you call fate..that which lays in the fingers that hold the pen..." Krail lost interest in Alder's movement and looked down at the obsidian cane, it was too heavy maybe something made of redsteel. He tossed the cane aside and let another one come into his hands, the shine of the string showing again for a split second before it disappeared. It wasnt magic, the string was both there and not there.

He giggled slightly. "I do love repeating stories of other tales...who knows perhaps I'll be reborn from the ashes !" He debated for months whether or not to move, however he'd felt the tingle in his hand and smiled as he stood his ground allowing the table leg to hit him sqaure in the stomach. The pain added years of difficulty and Krail even coughed as the air escaped his lungs in the present. "Such unconventional ways."

"You might want to check if your little friends haven't dried up..." he said somberly.. "Perhaps they dried up from the flames of a phoenix..or they died of old age from all the decades that passed...or they died of loneliness ..." Krail didn't know anymore, he had long stopped caring how it worked and simply let it be, he knew however that the little bugs had taken years to posion him. He had fallen ill and recovered in time although nothing that this eye could see. The bone in his hand had dried up, leaving nothing but a sharp curve of bone in his hand, as Alder was nearby he decided to stab him with the dagger although he suspected it would be too fragile and snap. "Now, do allow me to hit you with this cane.." whether or not the dagger attempt to preform a swift sweep with the cane at Alders feet.
Silence

Re: (CRP): Mostly Harmless

Post by Silence »

Again, the world moved and Alder simply removed the forces that moved him with it, seeming to slide over the ground and away from Krail.

"Now why in Zachrin's name would I do that, eh?" Plus, if yeh tell me what yer about teh do, it kinda gives the game away, yeh know. That said, in a few minutes, he wouldn't have to say anything to give the game away. This guy was difficult to read to say the least... difficult, but not impossible. Strangely, his expressions seemed disjointed, and they disappeared unnaturally quickly.

What was a little bit more worrying was the reports he'd gotten from his beetles. The mission had been accomplished, and they waited for further instructions... and they waited... and they waited... only a second had passed and they reported that they'd been waiting for years. Contacting them was like trying to contact the outside world from within his pocket dimension... any perception of time went straight out of the window.

The blow from the dagger had hit, but had been totally ineffectual. Being made of now dead beetles, it practically fell apart in the old man's hand... not to mention the fact that sharpened weapons didn't tend to have much of an effect on the hive. A few members might be cut in two, but there were always many more to replace them. Blunt objects were a little more effective... eventually, he'd run out of beetles, but that would still take more blows than most people had time to give him.

To kill a changeling which had become aware of what it was, you needed water... or magic... or cold temperatures... or fire... or some sort of poison or infection... there were a lot of ways, and most of them worked significantly better on changelings than on humans, along with many things that were harmless to humans. Ultimately though, sharp objects, especially small ones like knives and daggers, meant very little to Alder now. The cane was more worrying, but for some reason, the old guy had chosen to give away his next move.

Alder started to pace around Krail, keeping a distance of about four metres between them.

"So... do you get bored as well? I mean, with havin the world pass yeh by at a crawl? The worst part about it is, I keep tellin myself that every problem I have can be solved if I can just think enough about it... but it never seems teh work out like that. Yeh consider something for ages, and all yeh can say in the end is 'it depends on a whole bunch of variables that I just don't have'."

The changeling sighed and took a pack of cards from the empty space to his left, pulling them out of his pocket dimension. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he sent all fifty two cards into the air, where they simply hovered. With that, the changeling sat down and placed his palms to the floor.

He'd been in this place hundreds of times... by now, he knew it well enough to even know what the natural resonant frequencies of the stones in the floor were, along with how quickly shockwaves moved through them. Another crystal materialized next to him, then rapidly dissipated as he took the force from it and pushed it into the ground, then channeled it around towards the old man, creating two waves that arced around and collided, interfering constructively and shaking the ground around him.

This old guy might be able to consider every attack that could come at him and avoid it narrowly, so Alder simply attacked everything around him.
Krail

Re: (CRP): Mostly Harmless

Post by Krail »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKGmZN06lBI

"You make it sound as if I am lacking in the basic necessities, of course I get bored just as much as i get excited or depressed." His mind drifted off back to the squrriels that had stolen his acorn, every so often his mind fell back into reality. Was it that time already ? He looked at his hand, the wound was still open but the pain seemed to have gotten lost in the past. "What oddity, has it happened again..." he muttered to himself.

When he looked up he saw more magic, strange echos from another dimension sounded all around him and sneaked into his head, the noise was irritating at best just like those thiefing fur balls. As the cards, stones and crystals ((I was a bit confused on what exactly was attacking lol)) the ground shook and dirt went flying everywhere obscuring the view for a few moments. Krail had watched it all seperatly, elsewhere.

It wasn't magic, this was simply flowing with time. To control it was absurd but to flow with it was just as easy so long as you accepted certain unfortunate side effects. Krail had been there when all of the force had attacked him at that point yet he'd also been behind Alder yet unnoticable until the Krail of another time faded from this time and the other appeared behind Alder placing a hand on Alders shoulder (if allowed), all of this happeneing in a split second.

By no means was Krail powerful, physically he was weak and lacked any experience with weapons. In terms of magic, he found the entire charade disgusting however much like any craftsmen, he had to learn. No, his ability came from a natural element of life, time. It didn't make sense yet here he was. But at the same time, is it truly power if he isn't the one controlling it ?

As all returned to normal ((and assuming he's allowed to place a hand on alders shoulder)) he leaned in, speaking into his ear. "His smile fair as spring, as towards him he draws you;" ((Again assuming Alder hasn't evaded)) he spoke followed by aiming his cane whacking between the shoulder and neck of Alder. There was a pause as a bit of blood came slithering down onto Alders cloths. "Oh..oh I see...that is vaguely odd.." The hand that held Krails Cane was uninjured and yet blood tinkled down from his hand.
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