Lord of Azure Flame: Chapter 15: Happy Birthday Esphyr!

[Ansem]

"Chase is awake. He will be moving on to the semifinals!" The fightmonger wiped sweat away from his eyebrow. "Damn, had i know they would be causing this much trouble, i would have kick them out."

Edited August 5, 2010 by Solf J. Kimblee

[Dark Sage]

As a big man carried Reika to the infirmary, Alferis woke up, his chest bandaged and he sat up fully, seeing Reika put on a bed next to him, arrows sticking out of her.

"You lost to Chase?" he asked aloud, knowing she couldn't hear. "Thanks by the way," he said to the healer. "I'll just take my prize money and stay here a little bit now.

"Uh, no. See when you took the Wind Mage's spot, you lost your prize money due to slot changing. And since you lost, you didn't earn it back. No money for you."

"Grr...Fine." Just let me stay for a bit. The healer nodded and started using his staff on Reika.

"Reika...I hope you're ok Reika."

"She's fine. She'll be up and about in a while," said the healer, leaving the room, presumably to treat Chase.

[-Cynthia-]

Travis walked through the streets of Anglenar. Boring town, he thought to himself Then he saw the arena and walked inside.

"Sir, the tournament has already started, but you can come in as a spectator" the secretary said.

"Yeah, sure whatever toots." Travis replied, walking into the arena halls. You know, if I want the money, it makes more sense to just get it from the guy who has it rather than fighting a bunch of warriors for it. He walked up to where the lead fightmonger was.

"Hey, you running this thing, right? Gold please." Travis asked, drawing his sword.

"Guards!" yelled the lead fightmonger. Two guards appeared. Travis cut them in half with a single slash.

"Captain Travis, he's a hero! Taking arena winnings down to zero!" he yelled out, pointing his sword at the remaining man.

"Ah!" yelled the lead fightmonger, handing over the remaining prize money to Travis. "Tournament cancelled!" he yelled out to the arena.

Travis walked out of the arena, pockets full of gold. Time to get out of here. he thought, taking the nearest road out of town.

[Snowy_One]

"What the hell?!" exclaimed Esphyr as the fightmonger screamed into the arena that the tournament was canceled. With a happy sigh, Esphyr quickly stood up and turned to Damian. "Let's get Alf and the others and go. I hate it here with a passion."

Edited August 5, 2010 by Snowy_One

[riariadne]

"What the hell?" Chase shouted when he heard the fightmonger's yell, dashing toward the sound of the voice and noticing Travis leave. "Hey, I thought I had a chance at winning..." he muttered.

"Tournament cancelled?!" Conrad bellowed. "I demand a ref- oh, wait, I didn't pay for this. Nevermind," he exclaimed.

[Ether]

"That's wierd." Aiya said as the tournament was cancelled. Hearing Chase complain that it was over, Aiya turned to him.

"It isn't all that bad. Think about it, afterword, you would have had to fight both me and Conrad." Aiya said, patting the archer on the back.

"Let's just go, no point in staying."

**********************

"Yeah, let's go pick them up then. I wonder why they cancelled, though?" Damian replied, standing and heading towards the competitor's area.

[riariadne]

"Yeah, well, I think I could've won..." Chase muttered, then followed behind her.

[Dark Sage]

"TOURNAMENT CANCELLED!" both Alf and Reika heard, just when she woke up.

"The hell?" she asked.

"No idea. We should get out of here though. Maybe we'll learn what happened later."

Reika jumped out of bed and stumbled a little to the door.

"It seems you're not fully recovered. Do you want any help?"

She merely glared at him and walked a little more steadily, Alferis right behind her, ready to catch her if she fell.

[Snowy_One]

"I don't really care. So long as it wasn't a murder, I just want to get out of here." said Esphyr, drawing close to Damian.

[Ether]

"Fair enough." Damian replied, leading Esphyr towards the exit. As they rounded a corner, however, Damian cursed.

"Esphyr... you might not wanna look down that hallway." Damian told her, as it contained the bodies of the slain fightmongers, who were in the process of being moved.

[Snowy_One]

"Damian, I've seen a lot in my life. I'm su-" Esphyr's speech was suddenly cut off as she rounded the corner. The slain bodies of the men gave her a momentary pause as a thin vein started to pulse on her forehead in rage. She hated the arena, but murder? Not to mention that she was the one who wanted to murder them if anyone was going to! "Who did this?" she asked, her voice low and gruff.

[Dark Sage]

"Hey look, bodies," said Reika, rounding a corner and seeing the murdered fightmongers.

"Ah. That explains why the arena tourney was canceled," said Alferis, seeing sword wounds all over their bodies. Straight ahead, he saw Esphyr and Damian standing there, somewhat angry at what they saw.

"You guys ok? Did you see the murderer?" asked Alf as he headed over to them.

[Ether]

"No, we just got here. I guess you guys didn't see anything either?" Damian replied, gently stroking Esphyr's back to try to calm her down a little.

"W-What the hell...?" Aiya's voiuce was heard behind Alferis and Reika, as she too had just witnessed the bodies after leaving the competitor's area.

[Dark Sage]

"We just left the infirmary. Gotta say, a giant sword to the chest hurts like hell," said Alferis.

"Hmmm...nothing interesting here," said Reika, checking the dead mens' pockets.

[riariadne]

"Guys?" Chase asked them. "Wh-What happened? I saw someone leave, but I didn't know why they were leaving..."

[Dark Sage]

"You did? He must be the murderer here then," said Alferis. "Anyway, why didn't you stop him?"

"No money in this one," said Reika, continuing to rifle through one of the fightmonger's pockets.

"DESTRUCITY!" shouted Gazaak, running around with a steel axe over his head and tackling into Alferis.

"Ow! Who the hell...are...AGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG! NOT YOU! YOU ALREADY TOOK PART OF MY SANITY AWAY! STOP!" he shouted, remembering the definition of destrucity.

[riariadne]

"Well how was I supposed to know they killed people?" Chase asked them. "I went through another hallway, I didn't see this! I think it was somebody we've fought before... can't recall his name."

[Snowy_One]

"What the-Get the hell away from him!" screamed Esphyr, lunging forwards at the man whom had just tackled Alf to the ground. She didn't need to know his motive or his purpose; just that he had tackled Alf and Alf didn't want it. Her sword was out in a flash, slicing in a aimed strike to force the stranger away while she did her best to not hit Alf with the same blow.

[Phoenix]

Iso-kun Irina-chan and Lev-sama

Iso frustratedly headed over to the stairs leading up to the inn entrance and sat down on the third step, quickly balancing his arms across his legs and hanging his head. At least they had a plan, but Iso wanted to kill Shanice once and for all. Irina and Levski started grabbing chicken cages and bringing them into the inn to sit in the common room.

The Date's Conclusion Continuation

The man felt that perhaps if he could get Viveka to like him enough before the party left, she might begin to feel a bit frisky. That seemed to be his best shot at getting what he really wanted. Viveka was just so bored that she couldn't think of any other way to pass the time.

Man: It's really a shame that you and your friends will be leaving soon. I'm just starting to like you.

Viveka: (Just starting to?) ... tch, may as well tail the group. Morgan's pretty serious about accepting new people but at the same time, pretty much anyone who doesn't try to kill us is essentially welcome to come along. I don't even know the names of some of these people.

Man: ... what? (Urrrgh. Do I really have to travel with these people just to-) w-well it certain sounds interesting, but I'm not sure that I could depart so suddenly.

Viveka: Right, you have a lot of responsibilities here. I couldn't respect a man that would abandon his obligations and goals over a woman he just met. That's silly ^_^

Man: (Grrrrrr! I lied about being important so she would like me, but now I've run myself into a corner! Sh*t! A person with a real job can't just tag along with people for no reason! Sh*t-sh*t-sh*t!) ... r-right >_>'

Viveka: Well I must thank you for lunch, Jerry ... and the gifts too. When we leave I won't forget about this.

Jerry: (Shhhhhhhhhhh**************t!! I was so damn close! No! I've gotta think of something! When's the next time a girl like this is going to show up in town?!) ... well why not stay a bit longer? Your friends don't appear to be leaving just yet.

Viveka: Was there ... something else you wanted to do?

Jerry: (Tell her straight out, she kicks my ass. Lie to her, and I get that instead. This is impossible! How do other guys do it?! How do I get in there on the first date?! HOOOW?!!!) ... ummm.

[Balcerzak]

On their way to the TISME branch, the group Tessa was with had met up with Kelas, who was on her way back and had explained the situation. Apparently it was nothing of real interest, so everyone was headed back to the inn for supper and so forth. Looking forward to a hot meal, and then actually taking care of some business with her newly acquired items, Tessa saw no reason at all to disagree.

The nomad archer offered to carry her things for her, and while Tessa might ordinarily have been inclined to stubbornly take care of things on her own (it wasn't really that much stuff, but...), she had been finding that she'd been bumping into people a lot more often than she usually did. Perhaps the streets were just busy, but then that wouldn't really explain why nobody else was having any troubles... though to be fair, she hadn't been paying close enough attention she was sure she could say that with any basis in fact.

"Alright, Kelas, that sounds fine," she acquiesced, "Sorry to impose." Handing the woman the bag with the supplies that she had just acquired for Tessa handfuls of minutes earlier, she added a question that had been bothering her for awhile now. "Oh, and by the way, I meant to ask, but one distraction led to another and I lost the moment. I... sort of understand how money works, but there's a lot that's still confusing, right? I mean you can get it by giving away goods, but there seems to be other ways too. What I'm not sure I really understand is how it's decided what is worth what, or sometimes even why it's even necessary. I mean, back at the monastery everyone just worked, pooled things together, and we made due with the situation like that. It seemed... much simpler that way..." she trailed off, sounding confused and a bit nostalgic.

[Psych]

Cess:

As Cess walked inside, he went over to the receptionist. She showed him to a room down the hall, and he went inside. After a few moments, a woman walked in.

[Inactive Account]

Kelas put Tessa's things in with the other bags on the back of Amari's saddle and replied, "Well, money can buy a lot more than goods. Namely, services, like mercenary work, or craftsmanship, or whatever. It is a lot simpler when you can get by on your own, yeah, but that's not always possible to do.

"Mostly, though, it's just another form of power people like to throw about," she added. "It'll buy weapons, knowledge, loyalty even, sometimes. Mostly I just think it's a mess and avoid it when I can. Not that that works very well."

"It's not that bad," Arrin protested. "Prices generally depend on how much work went into the product and how dishonest the seller is, and you can bargain it down to minimize the cost from the second part, anyway." He launched into an unasked-for explanation of how bargaining work that had Kelas rolling her eyes and bolting for the barn as they'd arrived at the inn, pausing only to redistribute the trip's purchases to their owners.

"--so it's not really complicated," Arrin finished unhelpfully. "Hey, I smell food... let's go get some dinner!"

--------------------------------------------------

After stabling and caring for Amari, Kelas headed back inside, looking to set down the packs and find some dinner herself. Heading up the stairs to put the packs away, she passed Isotov, looking depressed. "Oi, you all right?" she asked, pausing.

[Snowy_One]

With a sweeping stride, the woman entered in. Five circles upon her shoulder designated her rank well as a fifth circle sage. In her hand was several notes and a pen. Sliding a pair of glasses up her nose, she took a seat opposite Cess.

"So you're the one who wanted to take the entrance examine?" she asked, as if confirming Cess's reason for being here. "Very well then. Understand that this exam is independent of your registration and fulfilling it does not make you a member of TISME until you complete the registration process. I have been informed that you will be taking the dark magic variation of this exam as well. My name is Diane and I will be administering the test for you." she shifted about uncomfortably on her seat, moving her dress about.

"This test will consist of five parts. A written exam, a demonstration of control, a demonstration of power, a demonstration of skill, and a test. Before we begin, show me what you have learned." she said, getting up and moving behind him. Behind Cess was a small cabinet filled with wooden training dummies. Taking one out and securing it in a small hole in the floor, she took a step back. "Don't hold back." she said, sliding her glasses up before readying her notes.

[Psych]

Cess:

Regi....stration? "Alright then." Pulling the tome out of his robes, Cess opened it and flipped through the pages. He closed the book, and formed a spell around his hand. Long whips of dark energy could be seen wrapping aroung the dummy, almost like snakes. Once the doll was sufficently wrapped, Cess swung his arm, the energy tensing up, and crushing the figure. Hay and straw could be seen pouring out and falling on the floor. "Is that sufficent?"

[Snowy_One]

"Indeed. I think I can see which of the area's we will start the testing in." said Diane, writing down in her notes before she went over to the closest again. A moment later, she returned to Cess, a two small spheres in her hand. Setting them down on the floor, she took a step back. The spheres were about the size of a grapefruit and made of simple wood. A hole was drilled through the top, through which a second and third sphere could easily be seen.

"There are three spheres inside each of these orbs. A innermost solid sphere, and two hollow spheres in addition to the outer shell. In the left one, crush the innermost while, in the right, rotate the second outermost so that it's hole is at the bottom. This is your control test first." she said before she pushed her glasses up once again and sat down, sweeping her dress out of the way. "Just so you know, they aren't that hard. Balsa wood except for the inner oak. Just calm down and focus and I'm sure you can do it."