By mid-morning the participants had gathered to watch yet another fight. It was quickly becoming routine to start the day with some bloodsport after breakfast, but this morning something felt different. It quickly became obvious to the gathered onlookers what it was - Tolis, the magistrate, was wearing a new robe.
Everything else was still the same though, and when Tolis called up the Drunken Brawler and Amoeboid to do battle, everyone settled down to the same old routine. The Brawler rose unsteadily and half-hobbled half-lurched his way down the stairs to the portal, a bottle in hand as always. His adversary was an obesely fat man, covered head to toe in a robe and cloak with a hood to cover the face. But when the Amoeboid walked down the stairs, it was obvious that his bulk did not hinder him the least, his movements were gracefully smooth and a sharp contrast to the sinewy Brawler's drunken gait.
Both stood solemnly by the portal as Tolis clapped his hands, and the mists filling the viewing screen dispersed to show the Drunken Brawler's unsurprising choice of arena. A small bar, with the usual tables and chairs and stools, but perhaps more surprisingly also filled with patrons. A few mutters were heard from the audience, but Tolis quickly reassured them that the people seen in the scene were conjured only for the fight, and that
likely no innocents would be harmed.
The Drunken Brawler quickly jumped through the portal and quickly disappeared among the people gathered to drink. The Amoeboid followed more slowly and carefully, stepping through slowly and then stopping to observe the scene. The Drunken Brawler was nowhere to be seen, and the fat man moved slowly forward, drawing plenty of eyes from the patrons, but he paid them no mind. He passed a table where four young men were playing a game of cards, then another where another young man sat with a tankard in hand and a waitress in his lap, and a third where an old man had fallen snoring onto the table in front of him, and no sign of the Drunken Brawler anywhere.
Suddenly the heap that was the old snoring man flew up at an alarming speed, and started landing a flurry of blows to the head and abdomen of the Amoeboid. With a sickening squishing sound rathluirc's head crumbled and seemed to fall into his shoulders, and the fat now-headless man lurched backwards several steps while Brisingamen jumped onto a nearby table, warily observing his opponent.
The patrons of the bar slowly started making their way towards the exit, though at a surprisingly calm pace. Clearly they were not unused to tavern brawls, and some even seemed to be betting on the outcome. The Amoeboid seemed to steady himself, and then his whole body shook violently, seemingly rearranging itself. The cloak, no longer held up by a head, had already fallen to the floor, but was suddenly joined by the entire robe as well as the fluid body of the Amoeboid seeped out through the hole where the head had been. Vaguely humanoid in shape, the half-translucent fluidic body effortlessly grew a new head, though the only thing that marked it as a head was its placement at the top of the body. There were no eyes, nose or mouth or anything marking it as different from the other four appendages sticking out from the sides. Suddenly the bar patrons were in a lot more hurry to get out the doors, leaving the bar empty save for the two combatants.
Brisingamen looked a bit shook up by the unexpected appearance of his adversary, but poised to jump at the Amoeboid with another flurry of blows. But before he had time to jump he was hit squarely in the chest by a sticky glob of... something... that had just shot from one of the Amoeboid's appendages. At first nothing seemed to happen, but a split second later the man on the table started to scream and slap at his chest to get the burning goo off. But the first glob was soon joined by another on his left thigh, and a third that narrowly missed his right ear.
Realizing he couldn't just stand there, the Brawler jumped straight at rathluirc with an enraged battle cry. His feet connected hard to one "shoulder", and one of the appendages was separated from the body, falling to the floor like a piece of dough. The Brawler kept up his flurry even while his hands and feet took burns from the strange plasma that made up the Amoeboid's body, and managed to separate three more appendages that also fell off, including the new "head". Clearly close quarter fighting was not the Amoeboid's strong side.
Triumphantly the Drunken Brawler intensified his attacks - when suddenly two more painful globs of goo struck him right in the middle of his back and in the neck. Confused he cast a glance over his shoulder and noticed what the audience had already seen - the severed appendages had taken on a life of their own and were now shooting at him from several directions. Close to panic, the drunkard threw himself backwards and onto the bar, then down behind it to take cover from the pelting from all directions.
rathluirc, somewhat thinner now with parts of his body off on their own, calmly reabsorbed one of the former appendages but let the other three circle towards the bar from all directions - one on each side, and one over the top. It was obvious he was still in full control of them, and they moved with a deadly purpose. But unseen to the strange fluid-man and his mini-mes, though fully visible to the audience, Brisingamen wasn't simply cowering in fear in the shelter of the bar. He was rummaging through the contents, and lined up several bottles of potent liquor in front of him. Then, mumbling a few syllables of some ancient tongue, his eyes started to glow.
He quickly upended the first bottle into his own mouth, and as the first mini-Amoeboid slid across the bar it was met with a stream of liquor spit by the Brawler, somehow ignited to burn with a hot blueish flame. As the stream struck the moving appendage it collapsed in a puddle on top of the bar. An acrid smoke began to rise towards the rafters in the ceiling, accompanied by a strange gurgling wail from the Amoeboid. But not only that - the deadly stream of flame also scattered over the bar and some of the furniture, immediately igniting the wood. Two more bottles spelled a similar fate for the other two mini-rathluircs while they were still in daze from the loss of the first, and more walls were put on fire by the hot flames. It was clear to the onlookers that there would be no putting out this fire, and the bar would not last many minutes at this rate.
As the Amoeboid recovered from the blows to his cohorts, he again started pelting the bar with his acidic projectiles, well out of spitting reach from the Drunken Brawler. The fire spread quickly but the bar was the center of it, and it contained some highly flammable substances too. The smoke obviously stung Brisingamen's eyes, but the Amoeboid didn't seem to care at all, though the rising heat had made the ripples across his body move at a higher pace. In a last ditch effort Brisingamen started hurling bottles blindly in the general direction of rathluirc. Some went wide and hit the walls, increasing the fire there even further. One hit the Amoeboid straight in the chest, but passed right through and struck the table behind him instead. But several fell to crash near the fluid-man's feet (or whatever goes instead of feet), forming pools of liquor that quickly caught fire.
Still under (gooey) fire from the Amoeboid, the Brawler made a sprint towards one of the windows and hurled himself right through it, away from the increasing inferno. The Amoeboid on the other hand was trapped by the flaming liquor all around him, and had no route to escape. Then the roof fell in.
As the smoke of the burning tavern was replaced by the familiar mist of the static viewing screen, Brisingamen lurched from the portal and fell coughing to the ground, retching from inhaling the heavy smoke. Of rathluirc, nothing remained but a fine vapor rising lazily towards the morning sky.
The Agents have chosen the next fight to be the Spellsword,
Methos, against the Ronin,
The13thRonin. Methos gets stage choice.
