Completed [The Pit] A Fighting Chance

[Syresshvassydir]

2nd of Fall, 517AV Syresshvassydir’s heart and mind were racing, his body and muscles were electrified as his emerald eyes gazed through the iron grate in front of him with longing. As Syna began her exit from the skies above, the sands on the other side had become tinged a rich amber hue. Other areas of the sand were marred a darker, dirtier brown. Each stain a testament to some poor fool without the strength and cunning to survive the Pit of Ravok. Even now the attendants were dragging away the corpse of the last contestant. Or rather, what was left of the human the Pitmaster had thrown, unarmed, against a pair of starving hounds. Sydir had taken great delight in the man’s screams as one hound held his leg firm while the other tore into the soft abdominal flesh. It hadn’t been much of a fight, nor was it meant to be. In his relatively short time among the Pit fighters, Sydir had come to learn that spectacle and showmanship were nearly as valuable as actual combat skills when it came to victory in the pit. The crowds were a fickle mistress, but they always loved a bit of bloodsport. Which was all that first round had been intended for: give the crowd a taste of blood and keep them fascinated with what could possibly come next. Surely, a show even more gruesome and brutal was to ensue! Sydir could hear the Ravokian crowd now. Their cheers and jeers and applause rumbled through the fighter’s cells beneath the arena. ”And soon,” he thought with a grin playing across his bronzed features, ”they will be cheering for Sydir.” Normally, the Dhani cared little and less about the opinions of others, especially if they were not Dhani themselves. But here, in Ravok, with the iron collar about his throat a constant reminder of where the balance of power lay, Sydir had grown to enjoy the adulation of the crowds. This evening would be his first opportunity to experience it as something besides a mere spectator. ”Ladies and gentlemen of our fair city!” the voice of the announcer on the upper ring of the pit cut through the crowd’s noises, stilling their raucous voices almost immediately. ”This evening, we bring you a debut match, the likes of which our fair city as not seen in many seasons!” Sydir smirked. While he hadn’t fought a live opponent yet, he’d been present at every match since his purchase. The announcer promised epic match-ups every other day, it seemed to the Dhani. ”Anything to drive the spectacle,” Sydir thought with a grim smirk, his hands wrapping around the bars of the grade before him as the human outside continued: ”Entering the Pit from the east, a common Sunberthan criminal, and unregistered alien resident, apprehended by our very finest City Guard!” Outside, the crowd booed and jeered as the gate opposite Sydir began to open, giving him the first glimpse of his opponent. The Dhani wasn’t sure whether to be apprehensive, or insulted. Across the pit stood a human male...barely full grown by the looks of him. His steps onto the sands were tentative and nervous, despite the dagger hanging from his belt. While Sydir was in no position for a detailed observation, it seemed apparent that his opponent was no warrior. His own gate began sliding up with a low rumble. ”And entering the Pit from the west, a savage half-man from the deepest jungles of Falyndar! Man against beast, it’s a classic tale, my fellow Ravokians!” As he spoke, Sydir strode out onto the sands. The Dhani took deep, measured breaths to calm his nerves. His steps were just as deliberate, and he spread his arms wide to let the jeers of the gathered audience wash over him. He knew his was not the main attraction, several empty spots could be seen in the rows around the Pit, but Sydir intended to give those present a show they would never forget. ”It’s man versus half-man, ladies and gentlemen! This is the last call to place your bets! Only one of these men is walking out of this Pit alive, who will it be?” NPC : Name: Taureg Verd Race: Human DoB: 3rd of Fall, 497AV PoB: Sunberth Skills: Larceny 27; Weapon: Dagger 13; Subterfuge 5; Stealth 5 Additional Info: Purportedly a citizen of Ravok, was caught in the act of cutting a purse and sentenced to fight in the Pits when he was unable to produce his citizenship papers.

[Syresshvassydir]

Sydir’s emerald eyes kept a tight focus on his opponent. The boy - Sydir couldn’t bring himself to refer to the gangly mass of limbs and sinew in front of him as a man - had managed to draw his dagger after staring at the Dhani in stunned silence for the first couple ticks. Sydir smirked, cracking his knuckles as each fighter sized up the other. For his part, Sydir felt little concern. If anything, this match was an insult - not just to him, but to all Dhani! How dare they match a great and powerful constrictor against this...this boy?! Well, he would have to show them the error of their ways. The crowd had grown muted, if never truly silent, as they waited to see how the two human figures would engage. Despite what was, to Sydir, obvious advantages in size and strength, the smaller human was still armed, if only with a single dagger. With a primal yell that seemed to originate deep in his chest, Sydir flung his arms wide and his head back as if screaming into the Ukalas themselves before rushing forward. The constrictor dropped his stance as he charged, preparing to tackle his opponent to the ground where he would be able to make short work of the would-be contender. But the human was either lucky or more skillful with that dagger than he let on. As the Dhani charged, his enemy twisted to the side, managing to score a shallow cut down the backside of Sydir’s ribcage. The crowd erupted at the sight of first blood. The larger, bronze-skinned man cried out in a mixture of shock, rage, and pain. Cool red blood flowed from the cut, trickling down Sydir’s side as he turned to face the dagger-wielding boy. ”What your name, boy?” the Dhani snarled, his voice full of venom and malice. ”Why? Are you planning to take me out to a fancy dinner or sommat?” came the youth’s response as he tossed the dagger between his hands, ”Ya think we’re on some fancy date?” This time it was the human’s turn to charge - just as he spoke his last word. Sydir’s eyes widened in slight surprise as the boy lunged forward with his dagger, though that surprise quickly yielded to disappointment. Sydir shifted his weight to his right and dropped his shoulder, taking his torso out of the boy’s line of attack even as he drove his left fist into his opponent’s unarmored abdomen. ”No, Sydir replied, curt and cool as his opponent fell to the ground, hunched into the fetal position. ”Think you want hear your name before you die.” A sharp kick to the human’s ribs rolled him over, but the human boy still had hold of his dagger. As he rolled, Taureg flashed the blade upward, scoring another shallow cut along Sydir’s calf. The constrictor Dhani hissed again, both in surprise and pain. ”Fine,” Sydir spat, ”I jussst call you dead man!” ”Call me what you like, mate. You’re the one bleeding.”

[Syresshvassydir]

Scarlet droplets fell from the cuts on Sydir’s back and legs, softening and mixing with the blood of countless others that had stepped onto these sands before him. The two cuts throbbed with a dull pain, which the Dhani forced into the back of his mind. Sydir had underestimated the human before him, grinning like some mad fool as he continued tossing his dagger from one hand to the other. ”I’m going to smear that smirk across the sands,” Sydir thought to himself, the roar of the crowd as he advanced once more, this time with a greater sense of caution. The constrictor Dhani kept his eyes on the dagger flicking to and fro between the hands of his opponent. Whether emboldened by Sydir’s slow advance, or by his two successful cuts, the human boy took the initiative and lunged forward once more, holding his dagger high for a top-down overhead stab. Sydir smirked as he saw the human’s clumsy attack. ”Stupid boy,” the Dhani thought as he moved forward, dropping his weight as he moved into Taureg’s lunge. Sydir drove his large left shoulder into the boy’s gut, forcing the breath from the human’s lungs as the dagger fell from stunned hands to go skittering across the sand. Standing back up, Sydir twisted his body back to the left, bringing his right hand down like a boulder falling from a high mountain, where it met Taureg’s jaw with an audible crack! A spray of blood flew outward, along with a single white tooth, falling to the golden sand beneath the fighters’ feet. Taureg fell to the ground, his head reeling as he made a desperate, crawling grab for his fallen dagger. The constrictor Dhani had no interest in seeing his opponent armed once again; reaching down, Sydir grabbed Taureg by the ankles, dragging him backwards through the sand. The roar of the crowd was deafening. They had come for a spectacle, for bloodshed and brutality. And Sydir was keen to deliver on their expectations. ”Get up, dead boy.” Sydir had to shout to be heard over the cheering crowds above them. Taureg rolled himself away from Sydir, standing on shaking legs. The boy glanced behind him where his dagger lay in the bloody sand. The Dhani only laughed, a slow rasp like the sliding of serpent scales across desert sands. ”No joke? Nothing to say?” Sydir teased his opponent. Spreading his arms wide, the Dhani turned in a slow circle, looking up at the crowd as a smile played across his face. ”All these people come, watch you die,” Sydir said when he’d turned full circle to face Taureg once more, his smile spreading from ear to ear, ”No disappoint them.” Taureg’s dark eyes were wild, though whether with fear or anger, Sydir couldn’t tell. Not that it mattered. In a fight to the death, either emotion had the potential to be deadly. With a primal yell, the human swung first from the left, then from the right. But his swings were as wild as his eyes. Sydir threw up an arm to block each blow before grabbing the boy by the shoulders. Pushing down with his arms, Sydir brought his knee up to meet Taureg’s nose, sending another bright scarlet plume spraying onto the sand. As the human reeled from the blow, clutching his nose in pain, Sydir pressed his assault, dropping his stance low as he stepped forward. Wrapping his arms behind Taureg’s calf muscles, Sydir stood, heaving as he muscled his body back into a standing position. For his part, Taureg’s feet left the ground for a few moments before he was tossed without ceremony back to the packed sand.

[Syresshvassydir]

As Taureg hit the ground with an audible thud, kicking up a small cloud of dust, Sydir felt a giddy sense of anticipation wash over him. While his muscles burned, his chest rose and fell with ragged, shallow breaths. The Dhani’s eyes seemed to crackle with green electricity as he advanced towards his prone opponent. That sense of giddiness, he knew it to be the sense of impending victory, washed away the ache from his mind. The thrill of the kill was all that mattered, and it was close at hand now. Sydir could smell it. Feel it. Taste it in the very air. For a brief, fleeting window of time, Sydir was no longer on the sands of the Pit, but back in the jungles of his native Falyndar, with weak and injured prey before him. The Dhani crouched down, coiling his powerful legs to spring into the air, a seemingly impossible feat for such a large man. But then, Sydir was no man. His jump may have been meager by human standards, the Dhani still wasn’t completely comfortable using his legs after nearly a century without, but it was enough for him to stretch his right elbow forward before gravity took over. The force of impact on his ribs and legs as he fell made Sydir wince slightly, not quite winding him this time. Taureg, however, took Sydir’s falling elbow to the torso, and the Dhani took satisfaction at the sound of ribs cracking and giving way beneath. Taureg, for his part, let out a bloodcurdling scream of pain. ”Impressive lungs for a boy that just had a Dhani fall on his chest,” Sydir thought before he reached his left hand up to grab the young human by the throat. Wrapping his digits around Taureg’s neck, Sydir began to squeeze. The human clutched at Sydir’s wrist with both hands, desperately scrabbling for even the smallest of gaps that might allow him some small reprieve. Using his right arm to lever his body back up while keeping his left grip firm, Sydir locked eyes with his opponent’s own ruddy brown orbs, a manic grin splitting his face nearly in half. For the first time since this thrice-damned collar had been snapped around his neck nearly a year ago, Sydir felt truly alive. As if realizing that he was soon to be summarily deprived of that privilege, Taureg began to thrash his entire body, kicking against the ground and writhing his torso, anything to dislodge the serpent that now straddled him. Over the last century, Sydir had not made a habit of losing his grip. Instead, he delivered first one, then another sharp blows to the young human’s face with his free hand. Each crack of bone-on-bone sent separate sprays of claret into the air, some of it speckling Sydir’s face and chest in warm scarlet. Taureg’s hands dropped away, and Sydir placed his right hand firmly over his left, continuing to squeeze and press down on the human’s throat. It was only at the last moment that he saw the glint of steel flashing in the sand. Inadvertently, his throw had put Taureg back within reach of his dagger, and the human rewarded Sydir’s carelessness with a slash at the Dhani’s own throat. For his part, Sydir managed to tuck his chin to protect his throat, taking a deep cut on his left cheek. As the cold blood splashed to the ground, Sydir clutched at the wound, a howl of mixed rage and pain issuing from his lungs. That made three times he had underestimated this human. Three times a filthy monkey, not even a proper warrior, had managed to wound the mighty Dhani. This was unacceptable. With Sydir still astride his torso, all two-hundred and fifty pounds of him, Taureg had little recourse but to follow up with a back-handed slash, this one angled to rake across the flesh of Sydir’s collarbone. Unfortunately for the human, his lack of options made him predictable. The Dhani constrictor caught the human’s wrist in his right hand, stopping the attack cold, and returning control of the fight to its proper owner. Sydir applied continuous pulling pressure on the human’s wrist, forcing Taureg’s right arm to over extend. Bracing his left hand onto the human’s elbow, Sydir pushed with his left just as he pulled with his right, and was rewarded with a clear snap, and the sight of ivory bone protruding from pale human flesh.

[Syresshvassydir]

The raw, primal scream of human agony mingled with the raucous roar of the crowd’s bloodthirsty approval, a veritable symphony to Sydir’s ears. Taureg’s dagger fell from his now-limp right hand, and his shriek of pain was reduced to a low, pitiful wail as his left hand reached and strained in desperation for the hilt that lay just a hair’s width from his fingertips. Sydir was having none of that, twisting his opponent’s arm, exposing further the length of jagged, broken ulna. An entire season of repressed rage came bursting to the surface of Sydir’s mind, the white-hot flame of emotion igniting the Dhani’s instinctive urge to inflict as much pain as inhumanly possible. Letting loose his grip on Taureg’s right arm, Sydir reached and retrieved the Sunberthan’s dagger with a single, languid motion, watching with glee as the last glimpse of hope vanished from the human’s eyes. Placing his right knee atop the human’s wrist, and without further fear of attack to his left flank, Sydir forced Taureg’s arm outward, away from his body, plunging the man’s own dagger into the tender flesh beneath his shoulder joint. The young human wailed once more, tears of pain welling in his eyes now as his life’s vital essence began draining onto the sand in regular, rhythmic pulses of crimson. ”You’re...you’re a petching mon-... monster you are,” the man managed to gasp in a ragged, coughing stutter. Sydir only smiled, the gash on his left cheek transforming it into an expression of horrific malice. The Dhani gathered his legs beneath him into a crouch, bringing his right leg over Taureg’s body and gripping the shaft of exposed bone in his corresponding fist. Sydir stood and twisted his body in one smooth motion, wrenching Taureg around in a circle before giving a sharp tug on his opponent’s ulna followed by a simple but powerful front kick to the small of his back. As the Sunberthan lurched forward, his wrist bent backwards with the leverage from the bone firmly in Sydir’s grip. First his skin stretched, then it ruptured, followed by a creaking crack of bone and a plume of scarlet through the air as the ulna erupted from the human’s forearm. In the end, Taureg was left face-down in the sand, while Sydir was left holding the jagged length of bone in his right hand. Stepping forward with casual confidence, Sydir knelt down and twined his calloused fingers into the young human’s fine, curly brown locks. Gathering the human’s hair into a tight fist, the Dhani yanked Taureg up onto his knees, with Sydir kneeling behind him. Leaning in close to the Sunberthan’s right ear, Sydir used his own bone to gesture at the copious amount of blood pooling around them in the sand. ”Who bleedsss now, dead man?” Sydir rasped in a sibilant whisper. Chuckling at his own joke, Sydir yanked Taureg’s head back to turn the human’s face towards the evening sky. In a swift, brutal motion, the Dhani drove the man’s ulna through the soft tissue of his neck, forcing a third of it out the other side. Coiling his arms around the human’s neck to grip the left end in his right hand, and the right end in his left, Sydir pulled each in opposing directions. With a final crackling of vertebrae, Taureg’s head was turned around so that his ruddy brown eyes, already beginning to glaze, met Sydir’s emerald orbs of fire directly. The young man’s jaw worked, his mouth gaping like a fish on dry land. Sydir kept his eyes locked on the human’s, watching intently as the last candle of life flickered and died. Satisfied at last, Sydir stood, letting the corpse fall to the ground like so much detritus. Already, dead man’s blood was seeping into the sands, mixing with that of all the other nameless failures preceding him. The constrictor Dhani raised his arms in exaltation, turning in a slow, victorious circle as he bathed in the frenzied roar of the crowd. There were cheers and jeers in equal parts as Sydir exited the Pit through the same iron grate he’d entered. Behind him, attendants lit torches to illuminate the next, final match of the day while others dragged the nameless dead man off the sands, where his corpse would feed the beasts below.

[Kayak]

 

Sydir

Skills
Acting: 2
Observation: 2
Intimidation: 3
Unarmed Combat: 3
Lores
The Pit: One sided fights are about entertainment, not skill
The powerless feel powerful when adored by crowds
The Pit: Sunberthan Crimjnals are booed
Dhani are called 'half-men' and 'monsters' in Ravok
Keeping an opponent disarmed is usually an advantage
Miscellaneous
Back Scar: Shallow Slash
Calf Scar: Shallow Slash
Face Cheek Scar: Shallow slash

 

Notes and Comments

CS Checkmarked: ✓
CS Reviewed by Me: ✓
Season Request was Submitted for Grade: Fall 517
Season Thread was Started (IC & OOC): Fall 517 & Fall 517
Is that Season's expenses paid?: ✓
Eligible for grade? Yes

an interesting read Sydir. I would've liked to have seen more of a challenge for you, but still, you did well. Please mark your post as graded

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