Mark Zerrit's Challenge
Iron Enigma had made sure they were one of the first guilds at the games. They had some business to attend to. Since they were here under a guise of legitimacy, they could get away with meeting with envoys of other dark guilds that hadn't made the attempt, or hadn't made it in. It was mostly simple things, promises to get inside information about various guilds if at all possible, deliver secret letters, the usual. Money was exchanged, and everyone came out of the deals feeling all the better. The beginning of the workings of a trap were laid, and in the end the guild was assembled on the floor of the Arena on time. Laynette Navarro arrived just as the announcer began to speak, apologizing, but it was dismissed with an 'it's fine' and Deyja gladly left the group to find a lone spot where he could watch.
Once it was announced that Mark would be the Iron Enigma participant, everyone jovially patted him on the back and gave him the thumbs up. Mark stumbled forward from a particularly hard slap on the back, and rolled his eyes at the offender, Grant, who gave him a thumbs up.
"Give em hell!" This got another eyeroll from Mark, who walked up with the other participants. He looked like he felt as if he could handle this just fine. Once it was said they could go, Mark more than gladly strode inside, smiling. Whatever they tried, they could not touch him.
As he entered the obstacle course, Mark traversed it with ease, but after a long time of going through it, again and again, he couldn't help but see that he hadn't seemed to make any progress.
"What... The hell? I've been doing this for forever now! I should've come to the challenge or something by now." He steeled himself, and continued on. Minutes later, he was right back where he was.
"Where's the damn challenge here?!" He turned around, and began heading backwards along the obstacle course, and after another few minutes he found himself going forward through it again.
"Where's the end to this damn thing!" Mark shouted into the slowly darkening obstacle course, and he threw himself into the side, hoping to break it. After several attempts, he took a couple steps back, shouting.
"Ice and Light Make: Piercing Beam!" He pressed his hands together, before making a releasing motion towards a wall. The magic circle formed, and the beam of light, tipped with Ice, slammed into the wall harmlessly, and he gritted his teeth at the sound of shattering ice, and as the light from the attempt faded, he realized how dark it was getting. Had he been in there all day? He quickly redoubled his efforts, trying to get through the obstacle course faster in the dimming light. Where was the challenge that was supposed to allow him to overcome his fear? Wasn't it supposed to happen by now? What if something had happened, and by some cruel design, he was trapped in here for forever.
They wouldn't do that, would they? Leave him trapped here until he found where the challenge was hidden? He wouldn't be able to find it anyway, it was pitch black now. Even if his challenge appeared, he'd have no way of seeing it.
"Light Make: Net!" This time he made the motion towards the ground, revealing it, as well as the general layout of the part of the obstacle course he had done a dozen dozen times already. He would do it again, no doubt, and again and again and again and again. He wasn't escaping this anytime soon, and every time he made it to where he was, the net of light was not there. This was impossible. Forward or back he always ended up going nowhere, and he was trapped in the dark now. He was sure the obstacle course was starting to change too. He had started tripping on hazards he could not remember being there when he could see, and he often found walls where he thought the way to the next part should be. He was lost in a straight corridor.
He continued on through the obstacle course, and after what felt like hours, he was sure he could feel slow thumping behind him. He started to move faster, only to bump into more walls and objects he did not remember. Maybe someone had snuck into the games and sabotaged this challenge just for him, maybe they had taken him to some sort of torture chamber. Mark tried to recall every enemy he had ever made. He gave up shortly, he had killed, pillaged, and plundered far too often to keep track of every person he had hurt, and the thumping was getting closer.
"Light Make: Beam!" He threw one hand out, and a glowing line launched from it, slamming into the first obstacle before curling around it and revealing the way. It was still a straight line after all!
However, Mark was forced to banish the light, as the thumps became more frequent once he cast the spell, and he started muttering obscenities that would make a sailor cringe as he started moving faster. Where was the challenge?! He tripped and fell again, cussing more. Whatever was making the thumps had to be practically next to him by now, and it had to be
huge. He got up and began running full tilt, glad he had nearly memorized the course by now. In two more minutes, his reality had been reduced to the constant, all-consuming triplet thuds of his heartbeat and whatever terrible manner of beast was chasing him. He occasionally threw an attack backwards, hoping to get a glimpse of what it was after him, but all he could see was the course he had just completed, following by the thuds growing faster. Where was the exit?
Eventually, Mark collapsed. He couldn't run anymore, his magic power was all but sapped, his heart beat wildly and his lungs were trying to tear out of his chest. Whatever was after him, it was going to win, it was going to get him. As he thought it, a feeling of peace flowed through him. He was going to die, here, at the hands of the ungodly beast barreling down on his tiny tunnel that he had to have been stuck in for, what, days? Weeks? Mark had lost any conception of what time was. For him, all it had been, for all it mattered, was the endless obstacle course he had been thrust into. He accepted it finally, his fate wasn't in his hands. He pushed himself up against the wall, so that he was sitting against it, and he closed his eyes.
All at once, it all stopped. The thumping, the sound, everything. For a second he had to check his pulse to make sure his heart hadn't stopped. After a moment he opened his eyes, a twinge of fear as to what he would find, and for an instant the thumping returned, and he felt himself running through the obstacle course. But he dismissed the fear and opened his eyes. He was blinded by the bright light being emitted from the doorway in front of him, and slowly he began to hear an almost constant cheer. It was... Over? Mark walked out into the sunlight, holding his hand over his eyes to block the light. It had not been hours in days, but only a dozen minutes or so. He was confused, but also elated. He was out! While first place would've been preferred, he was glad he was out. He forced himself to hold up his arms like he felt victorious, though he knew it looked nothing like on-screen.
From his lonely spot, all Deyja could think to say,
"What an odd game."Mayt --- On a train in the middle of nowhere.
First the train breaks down, then bandits? Of all things. In a moment he had his sword drawn and leveled at the nearest offender, most of he passengers of the train behind him.
"You all! Get out of here, and give back what you've taken thus far, or you will face the wrath of Phoenix Wing!" The seven men in front of him just laughed, and one called out.
"And who are you? Their towelboy?" A few laughed, but one or two were smart enough to know he wouldn't invoke a name in that manner unless he knew it could be upheld.
"Yeah yeah, laugh it up." Mayt rolled his eyes.
"I am the Phoenix Wing S-Class Wizard Mayt Marris, I specialize in the lost magic of energy manipulation, I challenge all of you. If you manage to defeat me, then you can have your run of the train, lose, and if I don't have your heads then you'll find yourself in a jail. Probably sometime next week." Two, maybe three people chuckled at the modified turn of phrase, but Mayt didn't have time to figure out from which side the chuckles came from.
"Or, if you don't believe you can fight me, then if you simply put down what you have stolen and leave, I will not pursue you, though I can make no promise that your identity will not be at stake from the fine people behind me. You have your ultimatum." Mayt looked down at the bandits.
After a hateful moment, one spoke.
"I'll take those odds!" The rest agreed in short order, and Mayt growled. All seven charged Mayt at once, and the crowd watched with bated breath. Mayt sighed.
"You asked for it. Degrade: Motion!" Several bandits flopped slowly onto their faces, and others started looking amazed as their run turned into a walk, and then into a crawl. Mayt simply walked to them, moving normally, and slamming the butt of his sword into each one's head hard enough to knock them out, some he had to hit two or three times, before releasing the spell. The people whose possessions he had saved started cheering. They continued up until Mayt blacked out, hitting the floor of the train with a thud, in which they began shouting and yelling.
Mithera -- A Fine Start to a Fine Day
Mithera woke up late that morning, but she didn't seem to mind. The sky outside had just enough clouds to be beautiful, and the tiny dragon-like creature let out a happy yawn as she stood and stretched. She hummed a delicate tune as she began to groom herself. Her long neck allowing her to reach every single part of her person. While a full bath would have to wait until the end of the festivities... In fact, why did it? She thought to herself, and she made a short little flight over to the door leading to Jamie's bathroom, and with some effort she opened it herself. Once inside, the plugged the drain in the sink, dispensed some soap into it, and let the water flow until it filled the basin to the brim with lukewarm sink water. Much nicer than the freezing brooks and streams she had been washing herself in for most of her life.
As she slipped into the sink, she let out a sigh of relief, and she couldn't believe how wonderful she felt that morning. It was odd, feeling so serene, it was all she could do not to fall asleep in the water. It took her several minutes for her to convince herself to start properly cleaning, and in no time the sink had turned brown. It was amazing how much dirt and grime white could hide, so long as the surface stayed relatively free on contaminates. It took Mithera four refills of the sink before it no longer turned dirt-brown from her washing, and at that point she finally let the water drain away and stay that way, watching as it whirl-pooled into the blackness that led to whatever water system Crocus had.
The leap from the edge of the sink to the towels was a tad farther that Mithera had originally anticipated. She was soaked, and so she couldn't fly over to the towels, though her wings could still provide some assist. She leaped from the corner of the sink, and managed to grab onto a towel. She yipped triumphantly just before her weight caused her to drag the towel down, and she made a thump on the floor, it falling over her. While the landing wasn't particularly fun, the experience was, and the tiny dragonoid found itself giggling in delight as it did its best to dry itself using the blanket. Folding her head this way and that, Mithera eventually got fairly dry, and she carried the towel into the bedroom, where she tossed it up onto the bed. She was still to wet to put it up properly herself, and so she would let it dry on the bed until Jamie or Room Service put it up.
She then found herself a nice warm spot on the floor, where sun had been shining directly for some time, and curled up in it for a good twenty minutes, drying off the rest of the way. Mithera loved the warm feeling of sunlight on her back, and thought of all the sunny glades she was missing on a day like today. Though, she had to remind herself, the air would be getting cooler in preparation for fall, as well as the many other small liberties nature took as it slowly turned the world to darkness for longer and longer times as it dropped into the winter, where one couldn't be unprotected from the cold at night or they would freeze.
Once Mithera was dry, she pushed her way out a window and took a tiring flight to the grand Colosseum of the magic games, and all the events occurring below. The first challenge seemed to be wrapping itself up, and Mithera floated slowly down in a lazy spiral, until she alit nicely on Master Jamie's shoulder, humming softly.
"Hello Master Jamie!" She would nuzzle the Guild Master's cheek, before looking at what was happening with the contestants.
"Since I missed it, what was the challenge? It seems to have left the four that're out kind of... Weathered, I guess would be the word." She pushed her neck out away from her body, trying to get a closer look without having to move.
