Vraxious- Hopes Path
Ochal stumbled for a moment, reeling from whatever the stigmata garden drain had done to him inside his armor. Vrax couldn’t see the damage, but he recovered quickly, heaving a glass-like blue-black barrier wall between him and the adapted plants just as tendrils and a dozen retrievers struck out. The acidic lurkers cracked against the barrier, acid spilling over the top to sizzle on Ochal's armor, and the retrievers began climbing up it like awful spiders, umbilical draped behind them. Ochal struggled for a moment, thrusting his staff down into the ground in a shower of black sparks, making the wall dome above himself slightly. Then, seeing the retrievers still climbing, Ochal parted a door-shaped gap into his barrier directly in line with Vrax and charged.
In the swirling mist, the Daisy writhed violently at something only it could see as daggers flashed through the air both around and into it. A particularly feverish flicker of its tendrils sent a spatter of blood and a short sword flying through the air to stick into the ground near Stereos’s feet. Stereos didn’t even notice he was muttering something to himself in a dark language that made everyone nearby’s brains itch concerningly while his hands contorted and he channeled a spell into being.
A slightly panicked voice called out from the mist. “This fucking plant thing can see me! And daggers aren’t doing shit to it!”
Vrax tried to counter Ochal’s charge with a backwards dash and instead ran smack into a head-height barrier, nearly clotheslining himself. Ochal swirled the staff downward, and Vrax blocked with his spear, sent to his knees by the force of the blow. The cape tried to lash out but was intercepted by impeccably placed small barriers in the air. Ochal’s next blow was propelled forward by a pillar of blue glass that seemed to explode from behind the bottom of the staff, turning his downward strike into a brutal uppercut. Vrax tried to bring his spear down to block as the cape writhed after Ochal above him, but it caught him square in the chest, blasting him past stereos in a tumbling heap. Ochal leapt after Vrax, summoning a dome of blue glass around himself and his two opponents. The adapted plants outside it hammered away, slowly cracking it as he assumed an aggressive staff-high stance and went for the still-casting mage.
Serrenity was swirling through the mist, long sword lit with a deadly blue blaze, as she charged onto the island and immediately had to dive through a tangle of retrievers who began pouring from the hive. One managed to launch directly onto her shoulder in a hissing clatter, latching onto her throat. She expertly bisected another two that flew at her, still dancing through the tangling lines. She grabbed the umbilical of the one on her throat, yanking it off in a coughing scream. The retriever and two of her now severed fingers plopped onto the island just outside the barrier. She twirled defensively, realizing her mistake as the hive continued its assault and the lurkers began spattering her with acid even as she dodged their blows.
Ochal saw Serenity’s dire situation and could still hear the vague obscenities being shouted by Charles in the mist as the thing chased after him. He moved to end this swiftly and help his teammates, lunging past the mage and going for the druid. Stereos ended his casting with a definitive utterance that caused a slight drip of blood from Ochal’s arm for just a moment as he fumbled his blow, his arm disobeying his commands and missing Vrax by inches. Stereos turned a hand outstretched towards Ochal, and with another flash of mana and utterance of intent, a spear of blood formed from inside Ochal's armor, piercing outwards through his forearm. Vrax, from his place on the ground, stabbed up into Ochal’s stumbling form, his smite a focused lance that dug under Ochal’s armpit, further savaging his arm.
Ochal dived away from the duo, out of the reach of Vrax's spear, his right arm hanging limply, a spear of solidified blood jutting from it, and rotting flesh seeping from beneath. “It’s a fucking blood mage and something weird! Plan B!” Ochal shouted out loud enough for his allies to hear him even over the din of battle.
No one got the chance to respond. Torvald traveling through the air far faster than anything that big ought to be able to hit Serenity with a full-bodied tackle, taking her crashing through both sides of the barrier in an explosion of magical glass and straight off the island into the lake beyond. A massive plume of steaming water geysered over the entire island. Ochal double-took for a moment as his barrier faded around him, the now visible form of Charles dashing to his side, the daisy hot in pursuit.
Ochal tried to bring a barrier around himself again, but Stereos uttered another word of command, and a spear of blood sprouted from inside Ochal’s abdomen, interrupting the skill. Vrax was still scrabbling around on the ground, fairly certain Ochal had broken damn near every rib he had and possibly his sternum with that savage uppercut. Charles looked between Vrax on the ground and Stereos deep in concentration and, without slowing, tossed a handful of daggers at each of them in turn.
It was far more effective than it should have been. Stereos caught all of them directly to his chest, piercing his lungs and possibly his heart, a protective blue barrier popping around him as the arena masters called him out. Vrax raised his arm weakly, managing to have them simply pierce his hand and shoulder instead of his head. He writhed on the ground for a moment, cursing brutally.
Charles didn’t get a chance to gloat over his successful attacks, as the daisy finally got a good hold of his leg and yanked his feet out from under him mid-sprint. He clawed into the rotten earth ineffectively as a tendril reeled him in towards the daisy. He screamed out in abject terror as it shoved him roughly against its maw.
There was a momentary pause as he was too big to fit past the oversized teeth, his hands splayed wide against the daisy’s face. “Someone fucking help me! This thing is actually trying to eat…...” He managed to yell out before the daisy took its free tendrils and roughly stuffed his struggling body into the maw, an arm snapping at an uncomfortable angle as he ground past the teeth. Almost immediately a blue barrier shimmered to life around him, and the daisy made an awful retching sound as the arena staff barrier pulled his terrified, bleeding form from its gullet.
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Vrax had recovered enough with the healing from his smite to pull himself onto his knees and stared down Ochal, who had wild, angry eyes peering through his helmet. They were the only two combatants on the island now. Ochal raised his staff high with his good arm, a swirl of barriers forming above him as he prepared to flatten Vrax. Vrax flipped him off just as every still-functioning plant attacked.
Ochal's raised arm was yanked sideways as a lurker got a hold of it, sizzling into his armor. Then another lurker wrapped around his chest, slowly pulling him backwards. He bent his knees and struggled forward for a moment, managing a step towards Vrax. The hive sent all of its remaining retrievers sailing through the air; he couldn’t dodge. They crawled over him, umbilicals scraping against his armor; one ran across his hand before diving into the gap between his gauntlet and forearm armor, and another skittered to his helmet and slipped inside right at eye level. A blue protective bubble sprung into life around him, flinging retrievers wildly across the island as the arena staff called Ochal out, saving him from whatever was about to happen.
Vrax sputtered on the ground, managing to get his feet under himself. He weakly stood up and looked around. The daisy was going psychotic trying to get into the barrier holding Charles, slowly pushing it off the edge of the island into the water. Charles was screaming profanities about unholy abominations as he got shaken around in the bubble over and over. Ochal was defeated, and Vrax could see a bubble being hoisted from the water holding Serenity’s unconscious form. Vrax hobbled over to collect the daisy just as the announcer belted out over the arena.
“Uhh… alright then….. as you can all see, the victors are Vrax Torvald anddddddd Stereos…...our unorthodox new team handily take….” His announcement was interrupted as Torvald broke from the edge of the water next to the lake like a leviathan in a shower of bloody water.
“Graaaaagghhhhh!!!” Torvald’s roar echoed over the announcer’s voice as he looked around, taking a moment to realize they had won. “Yeah! Let's go again, good fight!” He added in a shout for good measure. Then started watching bemused as Vrax was limping around the bubble trying to put the Daisy away before it managed to crack Charles’s protective bubble, his terrified muted screams still echoing from inside.
“Ahem, as I was saying,” the announcer continued a bit louder this time, “the new team has handily won. They are certainly ones to keep an eye on, and I doubt the betting odds will be against them so much next time. Everyone who had bets can now go collect them!” That's the last fight of the night, folks, as it was the only one in the no-holds-barred category!”
Vrax and Torvald made it back to the prep room with a healer after Vrax cleaned up the arena of his stigmata garden. The arena sent a mage in to burn out the remaining dandelion seeds to make sure they didn’t become an issue for the next night’s fights. Vrax was tended to after the more critically injured were dealt with first; notably, Serenity apparently had a broken spine and a torn larynx. Stereos had suffered multiple punctures to his lungs. Ochal had come terribly close to actually dying from blood loss by the end there, and Charles almost certainly needed some therapy.
The healer carefully plucked out daggers from Vrax’s hand and shoulder and then set to work slowly mending the wounds closed. His extremities were reasonably quick; it took the healer much longer to fix the scramble Ochal had made of his insides. Torvald merely waved the healer off; he somehow had gone through the fight with nothing more than some very minor burns and a bit of bruising from his skill-powered tackle through a magical wall.
The impromptu team went to collect their winnings back in the lounge. Vrax had bet everything he had, and with the odds they were given, he was up to nearly thirty gold now. Torvald basically cackled as he collected a sack with nearly double that amount. Stereos preferred to travel light and took his twenty gold in the form of two platinum.
Vrax looked at Stereos quite surprised. “You had a lot of faith in us winning to bet that much,” he said.
Stereos adjusted his glasses. “It seemed like the logical choice, a unique classed party member and a son of the duchy's most famous adventurer, plus I was confident that I could single out whatever enemy was a bad match-up for your unique skill set and at least delay them, which is exactly what happened. By the way, Vrax, have you aligned yourself with any faction yet?”
“No, we are just planning to do our own thing. Why?” Vrax said, a bit confused, and then looked over to where Torvald was getting a big hug from his mom, who then excitedly pantomimed a tackle while Cedric looked at him proudly. “The closest thing I have to a faction would be Hopes End. That's where the people I care about are.” Vrax said wistfully a sense of homesickness was surprisingly setting in.
“Well, you might want to consider it. The adventurers guild would do, if you become high enough ranked, but based on what I have seen, if you become well known enough, a smart lord might have you killed before you can reach the second tier. Your power set will let you eventually create a potentially limitless number of horrors that could wipe towns from the map if you are given enough time and materials. Very similar, actually, to the necromancer lord’s abilities, if much less intrinsically destructive.” Stereos calmly explained.
“That’s a very dark way to look at it, but I guess you are right. I hadn’t considered the wider implications. I guess for now we will just need to not get famous?” Vrax responded a bit taken aback by Stereo’s brutal but realistic reasoning.
They were interrupted as a lovely tall woman with deep brown hair and an almost intimidating build scooped Vrax into a hug. “Little Vrax, you and Tor were absolutely marvelous! It reminded me of Cedric and my first time fighting here twenty years ago! Underestimated and then beating the socks right off a bunch of knights!” Sola, Torvalds's mom, excitedly said while still holding Vrax captive in her crushing grasp.
Cedric gave Vrax a respectful nod and raised a mug into the air. “I would like to propose a toast.” His voice rattled the room this time with purpose instead of fear.
“To the new generation of adventurers, the first ones raised and sent forth from Hope's End!” He raised his mug high, and many mugs around the room raised with it in celebration as a smattering of cheers rang out. Vrax smiled to himself and raised his own mug up.