kapuchu

The Crucible - Winner Take All

I have been working on a posts today, but my nose is stuffy and I am too damn tired to finish. Expect and update from your favourite Floof tomorrow instead.

The Crucible - Winner Take All

I feel like I owe everyone here an apology. As some of you may have noticed there was a, shall we say, abundance of strange wordings, missing words, typos, and an assortment of other mistakes in my latest post.

Only a few of you know, but I use a voice to text program to write because I suffer from tendonitis. What that means is essentially that it is painful for me to type anything on a keyboard, or mouse, for any length of time. It is by no means 100% accurate, and me not being a native English speaker makes it a bit difficult for the programme to decide what exactly I am saying.

So there you have it, the reason for my errors and mistakes. I will endeavour to be more thorough when making my posts in the future.

Also, you can think Lazo for helping me go through and finding the mistakes in my most recent post.

The Crucible - Winner Take All

Lily V Brucie: Round One

Lily remained quiet and invisible even as her opponent entered what was to be their arena. Even as someone living in a world where demons and fire breathing lizards roamed the land, what she saw come through that door perplexed her. She had seen mechanically augmented people before, but this was something new. This was a hammerhead shark in what amounted to a mecha-like suit, giving him both arms and legs as well as an assortment of weapons.

As Brucie started walking along his walkway in search of Lily, she took her time to think. Orel seemed to have a habit of making puns directed towards whoever he was near, as evident by his endless stream of nicknames referencing her tails. He had done much the same with Brucie, saying "Water" instead of "What are", leading her to believe that maybe Brucie had something to do with water. The question, however, was whether or not it was a reference to him simply being a nautical creature, or if it actually had anything to do with his abilities. On the other hand the rocket launcher on his shoulder was a dead giveaway of at least one type of attack. That left only the contraption on his right arm. She could not immediately determine the nature of it, but given its lack of sharp or blunt edges she assumed it to be another ranged weapon.

Lily squinted, talking a few steps towards the railing separating her from a twenty foot drop, getting a better look at her opponent. So, summed up. Rocket launcher on his left shoulder: Minimum of six rockets, possibly more. Unidentified weapon on his right arm, probably ranged in nature. Mechanical limbs, seemingly powerful and processing claw-like tips. Can they be disabled? And what are those things and his lower jaw? He is a shark on land, and would normally be unable to breathe. Maybe that is how he avoids suffocation? It was worth considering at least, she decided, taking a few more steps along the walkway to avoid losing sight of him.

Now, how to defeat him? She smiled, an idea quickly forming in her mind.

With a small exertion of will, she created a copy of herself stepping out from cover some distance in front of Brucie. Immediately it caught his attention, "There ya are!" He shouted, laughing in his guttural manner. The copy of Lily raised its hand, balls of cobalt fire materializing all around her before firing off towards Brucie, who retaliated with a blast of high-pressure water from his arm mounted cannon, even as he dove out of the way of the fire.

The water jet tore through the illusion, dispelling it and the flames as well. Confusion reigned only for a moment before bolts of very real fire struck him in the back, each exploding with the force of a small rocket. He whirled around aiming his right hand at where the attack had come from - Lily, invisibility gone.

She darted out of the way of the speeding water orb, satisfied that it was slow enough for her to dodge. Barely had the thought finished before water and concussive force struck her, throwing her against the wall at an angle. Ears ringing, she stood up to see a duo of rockets coming her away. She met them with a blast of concussive force, detonating them in midair. The explosion allowed her to run for cover, a copy of herself running the opposite direction.

"Come out an' fight!" She heard the shark shouting, sounding almost playful somehow. Two more rockets were fired and found targets - one some distance behind her and another where her clone would be.

Lily didn't reply, but kept running, tails moving rapidly against each other. She dispelled the clone, jumped out of cover and over the railing, down to the concrete floor from where she sent a barrage of cobalt fire. Brucie met the onslaught with his own, extinguishing most of the fire with blasts of water. The torrents that did not hit fire instead came for Lily, forcing her to dart and weave.

A deep growl came from above her, the sound of something powerful and angry, followed by the sound of metal hitting concrete as he, too, jumped down. Lily only just managed to get into cover before a jet of water put a dent in the machine behind her.

"Don't be a li'l scaredy fish," Brucie growled, something that sounded suspiciously like glee in his voice.

"I'd rather not," Lily replied, stepping out of cover. She threw a hand up sending a lance of invisible force at Brucie and battered his right hand out of the way, sending the water jet wide.

Seeing her chance, she darted in, blinding him with a flash of illusory light. Sparks of electricity danced between her fingers, the electric humming unmistakable. She lashed out, her palm impacting with his torso, unleashing a powerful blast of electricity, enough for his entire body to violently convulse and throw him back several metres.

She righted herself, holding her arm where one of his claws had torn at her, as a result of his involuntary movements - It was shallow, but it still hurt. "You wanted me to fight instead of run?" She smiled grimly, teeth showing and tails whipping about behind her, her hands to her side and fingers crooked in a way that made her nails resemble wicked claws. "Well then, come and fight."

The Crucible - Winner Take All

@Lugubrious
The issue is that it's a LOT of clutter. Like, anyone coming in here and reading this stuff will be very confused. Heck, it'd prolly be difficult to find old posts and such, because you don't know which is Canon and which isn't.

I'd suggest just sticking the "Loser" in a Hider in the bottom of the Winner's post, but otherwise deleting the content of the Loser Post. That way the only "Visible posts" are the Winners, and thus we know the order of events.

The Crucible - Winner Take All

@Lugubrious
Speaking of Voting, a thought just occured to me. Since we all make our posts in the IC, we'll end up with 50% of the posts not even being actual Canon. It might be passable right now when there are only 2 people fighting, but when all of us suddenly have to fight... that's a lot of redundant posts that won't be "canon".

Are we to delete the content of the "Losing" posts, (adding it as a Hider in the Winner's, as mentioned in the Rule set), or what? We can't actually delete the posts entirely after all.

The Crucible - Winner Take All

The appearance of the smoke did not bother Lily in and of itself. They had already used a storm to transport them between Realms, so what more was a bit of smoke?

Even then, however, she didn't know exactly what was going to happen, so she adopted a more defensive stance, flexing her fingers with erect ears and undulating tails. And that was when it happened. The sound of air rushing by something moving quickly, came from behind her without warning. She whirled around ready to electrocute whoever it was that was attacking her, only to just catch a glimpse of Guðrún's frightened expression before the Lantern shattered at her feet and Lily disappeared.

---

The lightning bolt struck the railing with an audible Zap, singeing a portion of the metal black. Sparks still jumped between her fingers for several more moments before she finally managed to calm herself down. She lowered her hand back to her side, breathing deeply to calm her nerves.

Of course they had to send them off with a fanfare like that. Why could they not just have done it seamlessly? A fraction of a second later and Lily might have killed someone innocent. And if there was one thing she would not stand for, it was the murder of innocents. If anything that was what ten years of war had taught her: Leave the innocents alone.

She took a final deep breath and started to look around. She stood on what could be called the sort of balcony, with a set of stairs on her left leading up, and a door behind her. She couldn't quite determine the function of the building, but she was but it was not living quarters of any description. Beyond the guard railing in front of her was a metropolis; towering skyscrapers, monolithic apartment buildings, and lights everywhere. It was impressive in a way only possible through sheer size, foregoing interesting and aesthetically pleasing designs in favour of bulk and mass. Still, it was impressive but not the kind of thing that Lily valued.

She was about to turn around when the whirring sound of small motors caught her attention. A small drone with something akin to a tiny television strapped to the bottom of it, rose up from beneath the balcony she stood upon. It had no visible weapons so Lily relaxed, waiting to see what it would do. She was not surprised as, in short order, a holographic image of a man appeared on the screen. 'Oren,' as he called himself, was an aggravating individual it seemed. Too energetic and fully under the illusion that he was funny. She allowed him to speak and kindly ignored his crude attempt at a joke about her tails.

So her opponent was nearby? Relatively speaking anyway. That meant that he or she would most likely be found inside, a place with many hiding spaces and more than a few opportunities for misdirection. The perfect place for someone like Lily to fight. But she still needed to know as much about the building as possible, and heading inside now might only results in her getting lost. So she turned to the stairs and started climbing them. The stars turned out to simply circle the exterior of the building, which in turn also gave her a better idea of the purpose of the building. The higher she climbed, the more she saw, which in the end made her realise the best was a power plant of some sort.

Primitive, Lily thought, snorting derisively. Back home we got rid of this kind of of polluting trash centuries ago. What would the dryads say if they saw this? Nevermind that dryads, Cernunnos and Terra would be furious. She continued further up until she reached the Peak. Or rather, peaks. The "Silo", as it appeared to be one, ended in a pair of twin peaks, essentially splitting down the middle once you reached the top and continued to taper further, individually. It also offered the opportunity of a better view of the entire complex.

Far more than one building, she saw now, crisscrossed by massive pipes and dotted with smaller silos and tanks. It might have once been as impressive as the rest of the vicinity, had it only not been so run down. As it was rust dominated. Having become this experience and sight richer, Lily shows to head down the stairs once more and start exploring the Silo she had appeared on.

---

The inside was about as industrial looking as she would have expected: Garish and ugly, mottled brown and greys started with rust on far too many surfaces. A yellow light illuminated in the room she stepped into, in no way helping with making the place any more welcoming. Who ever had designed this room had had in mind solely function. It was a room filled with pipes and dials, various metres that Lily had no frame of reference for. Essentially everything in the here was as alien to her as she must be to some of the other competitors.

She glanced over her shoulder to see the drone with the small screen strapped to its bottom side hovering just outside the door, its one purple "eye" focused on her. He had mentioned that he would be her guide, but to what extent? Was he supposed to simply supervise or could he also be used as a source of information? There's only really one way to find out, she thought to herself, and turned fully around to face it.

"Oren!" she called, fully expecting equipment from a college capable of teleportation, to also be more than sufficient to pick up a voice from a distance. "You said you would be my guide. So guide me. I have some questions I would like answered."

A few seconds passed before the telltale whirl of fans carried on the breeze made its way to Inari's prominent ears. In no time, the drone popped over the edge of the Fuel Plant, its display already active. "What it is, Fluffybutt! Speak of the devil, and he will appear. Doncha think it's a bit...kit-'soon' to be asking for help, though? Neheheh!" Oren rested one hand over his other's knuckles, holding them in front of his chin. Even with eyes that appeared completely shut, his was an intent gaze.

"I'm not asking for help, but information. That lady, just before we were sent off to our individual positions, she mentioned a way to extract the soul of opponent without killing them. I want to know how."

A slight furrow of Oren's brow did not compromise his merry demeanor, though it did give his genial grin an edge of bemusement. "Well, that's awfully nice of you given the sneak preview you got of all this tournament's freakazoids -one of which I informed of your general whereabouts roughly twenty-five seconds ago, by the way- but what makes you think I know how those little hearts work?"

Lily was getting tired have the Clown's dodging the question. The frown on her face did compromise her merry demeanor... Had there been one, at any rate. She was about to start demanding proper answers when he started speaking again.

The bespectacled commentator gave a shrug, a chuckle, and a placating gesture. "Well, I do, of course. The artifacts in this place really are amazing! Tell me: ever seen a mosquito feed? Little bastards just can't get enough of sticking their little pokers in people's skin and sucking out their good stuff. Of course, contrary to what ya might expect, the one getting sucked is never happy about it. Guess you could say it really 'bugs' 'em! Neheheh. Good luck, Fluffer!"

And with that the screen turned off and returned once more to Black. At least she was rid of his ceaseless jokes. Nevertheless he had given her a very important clue. The phylactery out from under her shirt and looked it over. Barely an inch in length, constructed of rubber and metal, it was a strange, small contraction. Not like anything she had ever seen, and as someone who lived in a world where all manner of creatures, both wonderful and horrifying lived, that meant a fair deal. Near where the chain connected the the thing itself she noticed and number of small protrusions, much like needles or syringes, except there was no holes to speak of. Then again, if stabbing her opponents phylactery then she supposed that it could be something ethereal, and not physical. Sort of like electricity, perhaps?

She stuffed the thing back under her shirt, its weight against her breast much smaller now that she knew she did not have to kill to effectively win a round. The only question left, then, what what would happen to the who had their soul taken? Lily knew that she left an empty, lifeless shell back when she did it that one time, but the lady had explicitly said that the soul would be taken without killing. That must mean that it definitely did not take the life if you ever lost their soul. She had to wonder what else did happen, because something like that could not happen without some changes to the person.

But that was a question for whenever she had to try it. Oren had mentioned that he had informed her opponent, of her general whereabouts. A fight would happen soon then, so she had to be alert. This room however wasn't quite to her preferences. She hoped the next room did.

She strode through the room and opened the door on the other side, coming into a cavernous room filled with pipes and machines and walkways, and so many potential hiding spaces, corners or pipes that could momentarily break line of sight. She felt a tiny smile tug at the corners of her lips. This place was ideal. Thiswas where she would stand her ground.

She stepped out of the way of the door and bent the light around her, rendering her invisible. Now all she had to do was wait.

The Crucible - Winner Take All

@DracoLunaris

fox human. Is she from fenris? Quite gorgeous heretical,

No one can resist the charms of a Kitsune! Not even a fanatical soldier! Surrender to the Floof! Surrender, and all shall be well!

Ianus Congreatio: Secret societies, horror, and mystery in the shadows of Prague.

@MacabreFox
I'm really sad about that :< I liked having all 5 of us here.

Well, if things lighten up do you think maybe you could come back? You don't have to promise anything, just asking if it's possible :3

Ianus Congreatio: Secret societies, horror, and mystery in the shadows of Prague.

@MacabreFox
even though updates are so few and far between? You really don't have time to write a little bit once a month? o_O

The Crucible - Winner Take All

Lily has seen a lot of impressive sites in her life. Everything from humans turning into Dragons, to portals to different Realms. And yet, this transition and this place surprise her. Not half a minute had passed since she left to follow the two College representatives, and already they have moved what must have been immeasurable distances. Immeasurable in the sense that they weren't in the same plane of existence, but somewhere else. Undoubtedly where their College and this City of Echoes resided.

The massive building that greeted Lily upon stepping out of the fog seemed to indicate as much. So clean and immaculate that she at first attempted to peer through it and she would any other illusion, only the come up with nothing but the realisation that this building was actually as perfect as it looked. In a way the place reminded her of the Academy, with its seemingly utilitarian design, yet made with the intent to impress as much as it was made to be useful. It was a sight that tugged at her heart strings, reminding her of her blissful ignorance during the days when it was just training and practice. Reminded her of what they were trained to become: Soldiers and weapons, each with far more power than anyone human should ever possess.

She grimaced but followed Jonathan and Guðrún up the stairs that lead to an entrance, the door itself being just as grandiose as the rest of the building. Jonathan pushed open the door so let them in, waving the two women inside before he himself entered. "Ladies first," he said, then entered after them.

The inside was the same as the outside: Immaculately clean and an equal mix of form and function. The hallway they entered into was lined on either side by multiple pathways to other areas of the college, each warded off in such a way that one could easily pass through, but the intent that the places being off limits was still very evident. In a way, designing it like this came as no surprise to Lily. This was a place for the arrogant, and how did one show arrogance? Treat them as if you expect them to blindly obey, of course, but leave them an opening through which to disobey. That was what those flimsy dividers made of rope was designed for. They didn't want people to wander those warded off places, but didn't bother to actually make them off limits as if to show that they fully expected you to obey, or thought you incapable of resisting should they decide to stop you.

Lily flicked an ear in annoyance, forcefully dispelling the thoughts. She had had enough of arrogant individuals in her time, so now she just wanted this over with so they could begin the tournament, and she could get Max back.

She looked up to see the she and Guðrún stood in front of a pair of saloon shutters, with Jonathan nowhere to be seen. She gave the redhead a questioning glance, to which she was told that Jonathan had left them just prior, as something that required his attention. "Nevermind that," Guðrún continued, "The tournaments should start within the next few hours. Until then, go through these doors and stand on the podium of the other side. Wait there until the announcement begins"

Lily didn't reply verbally, but nodded and pushed the shutters aside to let herself in. What greeted her was even more grandiose than the outside. Potted plants, mosaics, and a cleanliness that should have been all but impossible dominated the room. Aside from a slightly lowered centre Stage, the circular room had dozens of podiums just like Lily zone forming a perfect circle along the outer edges, each with its own door behind it. Some of these podiums already had occupants. On the other side of the room she could spit something that looks like an amorphous blob, whereas on the left side of the room she spotted a woman far more well-endowed than even herself which would have been quite the accomplishment had said woman not been seemingly composed of sentient slime.

She let her eyes roam the interior of the room, I'm over every new contestant that appeared. Burly men, in-human creatures like a herself, armoured soldiers, and-- Lily froze, eyes widening in surprise. Long, raven hair, pale skin a hair's breadth taller than Lily. "Celica?" She whispered to herself. One of the people who had managed to become Lily's friend in the years on the Academy, someone with the power of a Yuki-Onna. Why was she here? What wish did she have that she would want fulfilled? Her eyes narrowed, studying the other woman closer.

When the woman turned ever so slightly, and Lily caught a glimpse of one icy, blue eye, she knew that this was not Celica. That made her breathe a sigh of relief. Celica have been among her first and best friends, one of the few who somehow managed to face Lily without provoking her anger. Her temper was still volatile if one pushed the right buttons, but on the greater whole she has learnt to control it and stay calm. It happened as saving grace more than once during the fighting.

Time passed slowly after that, but eventually every podium was occupied by someone or something, and the official announcement was about to be made. An older woman started speaking, detailing the premise and how the fighting would work. She mentioned phylacteries, said items resting on a small pedestal in front of the podium. It was a funny little thing, a heart made of rubber - a piece of glass allowing view of the inside, filled with cogs. This thing supposedly contained their soul? Bullshit. A soul was not something so easily contained. She was a Kitsune, she would know. The one outlawed ability of her kind, the ability to train the soul of someone else, carried with that risks to gruesome to speak of. She have done it once, in a fit of rage, as an act of vengeance against someone who had managed to wound Tsukiko in battle. She had felt their soul being ripped out as if it had been her own. It had been a horror that could not be described in words. She glared at the woman, doubt heavy on her mind.

But this was a different world, so maybe the rules with different here? She looked down at the phylactery again. Could this thing really contain the soul of the wearer? Could it enable others, who were not like her, to forcefully tear the soul from another living being? If that was the case, then this tournament just became a whole lot more terrible. But... She couldn't abandon it, couldn't abandon him. She had already resigned herself to return to a battlefield to get him back, what more was this? She had hinted that there may be ways of retrieving an opponent's soul without killing them. Maybe she wouldn't have to kill someone in such a gruesome way again?

She sighed and put the necklace on, letting the small, artificial heart rest against her breast underneath her shirt. She could only hope that was the case.