Evening, Day 7
The gods were furious that Perpentach had allowed his travesty to occur. What they were angry at of course was that they had not been invited to watch two goody-good priests fight against each other. Did you think that they were angry that Perpentach had let them fight each other, perhaps? No, of course not! The priests were far more annoying than the regular people; they were always beseeching that the gods aid them in every task. Couldn’t they think for themselves? It was people like the priests who caused the gods to go crazy and throw lightning bolts or impregnate women by taking the form of rain and crazy things like that.
There weren’t any clouds in the sky. An ill wind blew into town and rented a hotel for the night. The crowd was electrified. This was going to be a fight to tell the children about - two priests beating the crap out of each other was not something that was seen every day, not even in the land of the Balseraph. The pompous court official had even decided to come out and personally announce the combatants, like a containering official (containering is like boxing, but more violent.).
"In this corner," he said, completely fallaciously because there were no corners owing to the fact that the Theater of Dreams was an oval, "we have the Man with the Plan, the Luridus!" Half of the crowd cheered while the other spontaneously erupted in festivities. He was pretty fly for a pious guy. He had on his street robes, which gave him street cred on the streets. They had holy symbols embroidered on it and were as white as snow. He waved at the crowd, clearly enjoying the attention, and probably breaking at least two holy rules.
"And in the other corner," said the supercilious official, not even bothering to hide his smirk, "we have the Beast Priest, the Prior!" The Prior’s eyes twinkled as he came out. "I didn’t agree to this moniker, you know," he let the crowd know. His robes were off-white, like a cream color. He gave a dazzling grin to the audience.
It was almost a shame that these two goody two-shoes hadn’t been stuckups like the ones before, because a good number of the crowd almost decided to begin to feel the pangs of their conscience hum when the bells chimed. Reality was flushed away like water in a toilet bowl and came swirling back up. The crowd was afraid that the Luridus was going to be uncreative and use a church (and anyway the Luonnotar had already done such a thing) , so when its fears were discovered to have been unfounded, it gave a cheer. The two men were in the ruins of a church. Snow packed the ground and a sole butterfly flew away, into the distance.
"Junil’s wrath!" called out the Prior, hardly wasting any time. A beam of blue light left his hand. "Wrath of Lugus!" yelled the Luridus. Blue light left his hand like a beam. The two spells passed each other like bullet trains and embedded themselves in their targets, both of which made absolutely no effort to dodge and absorbed the magic quite easily.
"I do not fear your god," said the Prior, digging his heels in the snow.
"Nor do I fear yours."
The Prior opened a portal to heaven, and a winged horse stepped out. This was, of course, a considerable understatement. Clad in armor, nobody could make out its face. Blinding light radiated from it. Its mail was burning with righteous flame; even its flames were burning with miniature flames of its own, ad infinitum. Its wings of plasma fried the air and murdered countless of air molecules, viciously spilling them apart.
The horse flew towards its enemy. The Luridus chucked a fireball at it, but the beast corkscrewed out of the way. The Prior leapt too, to avoid the fireball, which landed with a hiss behind him, melting vast quantities of snow as it fizzled. The explosion made by the extinguishing fireball let a flurry of snow shower the Prior like a geyser, burying him under a thin layer of snow.
The horse bit the Luridus, ruining his cloak’s shoulder. Blood splattered rather poetically onto the snow. The horse flew back before the Luridus could lay a finger on it and nipped him again in the knee. Because the Horse had gotten near to attack, though, he laid his hands on the horse this second time and lit up its mind with Lugus’s light. Enlightened, the horse flew away, travelling far and wide, eventually forsaking all war and violence and deciding to live life as a normal, if winged, horse. Eventually it found a mate and discovered that wings were a dominant trait, and it would father many strong lineages of horses that still exist to this date.
The Luridus raised his hand up. A ball of light appeared, floating in his hand. He then pressed it to his shoulder, and the blood began retracting. Flesh grew over the wound at a breathtaking speed, but it still smarted. He then did the same with his mangled knee. The image of the Luridus flickered, and then tripled. Three Luriduses surrounded the Prior now, making a neat equilateral triangle, with the Prior in the middle. They walked in slowly, not moving directly at the Prior but rather in a sort of swirl. Suddenly, they darted forward. The Prior closed his eyes and extended his left arm out. A beam of light shot out, stopping the Luridus cold; his illusions flickered and dissolved while he plopped onto the ground.
"Too easy," said the Prior. How cocky! The audience ate it up. Suddenly, the Luridus leapt up, making a beeline towards the Prior, who prepared another spell. His hand was grabbed though, and the spell shot harmlessly to the side of the Prior (at least from his perspective; I am sure the bird that the stray spell hit did not share that opinion.).The Luridus seized the neck of his enemy in an iron grip, and with his other hand he covered his enemy’s face. Magic surged into the Prior’s head and bounced around like a ball of energetic light, destroying all the little vases inside. The blow of this magical force was enough to cause the Prior to go into convulsions, and his flailing arms managed to score a hit on the surprised Luridus, who let go of his enemy and fell onto his buttocks in the snow.
His wits quite literally regained, the Prior picked himself up of the snow again, albeit with a severe headache this time. The Luridus, on the ground, pointed a finger at the Prior, rather like E.T. phoning home, except a bolt of lightning shot out instead of a galactic telephone call. This time, though, the Prior was good and enraged.
"For my converts, I shall never bow to your unholy magics!" He made a swiping motion with his right hand, and the bolt fizzled harmlessly to the side. The Luridus got up, but with uncharacteristic speed, the Prior pressed his palm to the Luridus’s head. A shockwave built up and was sent back. It sounded like a bass drum was hit, and the sound resonated throughout people’s souls. Wind billowed out from the force of contact. Snow flew outwards in a circle.
"I purge your sins," he whispered, but somehow everybody could hear it. The Luridus’s body arched back, convulsing. Somehow, he was still standing. Suddenly, wounds opened at a frantic pace in his body. The flesh on his right leg ripped open while his other shoulder popped open. A deep gash sliced itself on his forehead and blood literally exploded from his back, ripping right through the robe. Then he fell. The sudden blood loss was enough to kill any normal man. As the earth rushed up to meet him, the Prior had a nasty grin on his face. The Luridus could feel life leaving his body. As a last ditch effort, he grabbed the Prior’s foot as he tumbled. His hand slipped because of the blood that was on it from the previous blow, but he dug his fingers deep and caught hold of it. He yanked, and the Prior fell. His head hit an ice patch on the snow, which worsened his already very deep headache; he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to concentrate long enough to cast a spell. The Prior’s arms flailed, but they were expertly - or desperately - blocked by the Luridus, who had by now gotten on top of his enemy. He shoveled snow into his enemy’s mouth, the snow stained red by blood.
It’s hard to cast spells when you’re suffocating after all. But the Luridus never saw what happened; he tumbled off of his adversary, facedown into the snow. The audience was tense: who had lived? who had died? The tension was by no means lessened when time slowed down once again, showing the now familiar coin spinning lazily through the air above the two fallen combatants, an engraved V clearly showing. But who?
The bell chimed, and the officials rushed out, flipping the Luridus’s body over. They checked both bodies for a heartbeat - and there it was. Somehow, one of them was still alive. They rushed him off stage into a doctor, who presumably wasn’t going to bleed his patient with leeches.
Spoiler :
This time the pompous official was clearly taken aback by the haste with which the survivor had to be ushered away, for it took nearly a minute before he came rushing onto the stage. Irritated he merely recited the outcome of the day's voting, then rushed right back again.
Final Vote Tally:
Lich : 9 (1st voter: Archmage ; 2nd voter: Raider )
Ghost : 7 (1st voter: Archmage ; 2nd voter: Raider )
Ogre : 3
Assassin, Divided Soul, Frost Speaker, Illusionist, Paladin : 2
Dragonslayer, Overlord Speaker, Pirate : 1
Morning fight: Lich vs Ghost, Ghost gets arena choice.
Current Vote Breakdown:
Spoiler :
It is now night.
Marks, send me your choices for the evening combatants.
People with night abilities, send me PMs.
Members of The Disciples, vote for new team leader in Bold Blue.
Betting is open for Lich vs Ghost. Place your bets in bold dark orange.
What does that leave me with?
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