• Mature • IV. A Full Belly

[Kasoria]

25th Trial, Ashan 719a
Bay of Yaralon
8th bell

Continued from here

He didn't often fight angry. Made you stupid. Muddled your judgement. Better the cold, precise butchery he usually employed than the blind, burning joy of battle-rage. He'd seen too many skilled fighters dull themselves into novices because they just could not control themselves. They focused on the simple, quick, direct blows and ignored the steps to get there. Didn't see the traps and feints and angles that could be used against them.

Kasoria knew it was a mistake. Against a foe his lesser, it wouldn't have been. Even raging and furious, he could have overwhelmed the average enemy. But he'd seen Otrar move. He'd been up against the grace and speed of the black-skinned sailor.

Kasoria knew it was a mistake, but the fire would not quench. He thought of his appreciation for the kid, their apparent mutual respect, and the memories turned bitter before bursting into flames. Behind them, closer and fresher, was the sight of Legonne. Not a friend, barely even a comrade, but an ally. One who'd stayed true to his oath and contract even as he watched the blood spread under him, as if his life was fleeing with measurable speed. He thought of their lessons on the deck, matching Defiance against Abrogation, fire and water and air against walls of conjured magic. He thought of his thin, young face after Otrar skewered him. Every muscle clenched tight against the pain.

He shouldn't have cared. It shouldn't have mattered. Not to him, of all damned souls in the world... but it did.

Kasoria lunged at the boy with not one but two feints. Dagger in his right hand swinging out, stabbing high for the neck-

-pulled back as one of Otrar's blades moved up to block it, other one stabbing for his guts in a counter-

-then stopping as the dagger redirected, pulled back tight to Kasoria's side before thrusting out, karambit, sweeping to the side to knock away the counter-

-that never arrived. Otrar wasn't content to remain on the defensive. Metal met metal and instead of pausing, Otrar pushed back against the karambit. His counter became a bind, a shove, heaving Kasoria back a few steps as the other dagger lashed out-

-barely avoided by Kasoria, backpedal becoming almost a stagger as he went-

-until he tripped over his foot on the last step, arms flung out to his sides, steadying himself against the railing he'd just smacked into. Otrar grinned, eyes gleaming with understanding. He'd seen the effects of Overstepping over the last score of days; whenever Kasoria and Legonne had practiced, in fact. He knew what that weariness, that bone-deep and muscle-loosening draining looked like. He saw a thin dribble of blood crawl out of Kasoria's nose; he noted how it took a trill or two longer for the man to get back into fighting stance.

"Nice trick wiv' that magic, by the way," he said airily, endearing exotic accent vanishing, replaced by a hard, guttural dialect straight from the Dust Quarter. "Won't do ya much good now, though, when you've still got-"

Kasoria screamed and lunged and knew he was doing exactly what the kid wanted. Lettign loose to his anger, forgetting tactics or strategy. Coming in hard and fast and seeking to overwhelm the boy. But Otrar's daggers were everywhere at once. Metal crashed and clanged and scraped. He couldn't pierce his defenses. The boy was younger, faster-

Better. Fresher. Stupid old man.

Though Traitor's Claw protected him from pain inflicted on him, it did nothing for the strain already placed on him before he'd unsheathed it. The will to cast magic was not all it took, as he was fast learning: it sapped and leeched from his muscles, too. His balance and his strength. They were weakened now, as if he'd ran ten miles in the blazing sun or fought a score of other men before getting close to Otrar. Sweat was running down his face, along with the blood. His vision was starting to blur. And all the while they were having their neat little duel-

"Fucking DIE!"

-a pair of brawling figures swung between them like demented dancers, clawing at each other. Kasoria had but a moment to remember which face was friendly, and he stabbed his dagger hilt-deep into his side. Under the armpit, between the ribs. Over and over, perforating the lungs and pulling... pulling... but it wouldn't-

Shit!

Otrar didn't waste his moment of advantage. He shoulder-charged the two men that interrupted them, driving them both into Kasoria. Knocking the little man off his feet, buried under a pair of bodies still tangled in each other. The pirate was dying, coughing up blood. Kasoria's comrade from the Lady barely had enough time to spit out another curse before Otrar neatly jammed his dagger into the side of his throat, then ripped it forwards-

"FUCK!"

Kasoria bellowed and thrashed as the sailor's eviscerated neck erupted blood all over his face. Instantly blind, instantly insensible, all he could do was hack blindly with the blade he had left. He'd let go of the dagger, leaving it jammed in the dead pirate's ribs. But now he and the recently deceased sailor from the Lady were dead weight atop him. He writhed and heaved and tried to squint through eyes that burned with wet, salty, sticky scarlet. A shadow moved across him and he instinctively slashed upwards at it-

-Traitor Claw hurtling up into naught but air, shadow vanishing, toying with him-

-and Kasoria grunted as he felt a sudden, immense pressure in his arm. He shook his head and saw Otrar's foot jerk back down, frowning in surprise that his savage kick to Kasoria's forearm hadn't at least broken his grip on the karambit. His mind blear but his instincts undimmed, Kasoria seized his chance, punching out with the curved blade jutting out from his hand-

Now it was Otrar's turn to scream. The punch slammed into his thigh, and the blade bit into it a moment later. Not just the pain of that blow came with it, though. The Claw's enchantment worked as it ever did, absorbing the shattering, bone-breaking strength of that kick into itself... and hurling it right back into Otrar as the blade made contact. The sailor howled and hobbled backwards, leg feeling like it was broken even though it wasn't. Just carved and bleeding. Giving Kasoria a window to wriggle out from the bodies, get up to his feet and-

"Fuckin' old bastard!"

-now Otrar was on the offensive, two blades to Kasoria's one. The older killer backed up as fast and as far as he could, which wasn't even close to far enough. He swayed away from a diagonal strike, slapped another away with his forearm, got ready to absorb another-

-his karambit came slashing down onto Otrar's own arm, outstetched just a moment longer than it shoulder have been. The blade ripped a red line down the inside of his elbow, and the dagger fell from his hand. But Otrar didn't back down. He just curled his open hand into a fist and-

CRUNCH

-nailed a vicious jab into Kasoria's right eye. His vision exploded into blues and blacks and red, dying, birthing, expanding, shrinking stars that blotted everything out. But no pain. Traitor Claw gave him that mercy, at least. But he was blind again, staggering, and when he opened his eye, Otrar's remaining dagger was thrusting towards his stomach, seeking to gut him standing-

-and he couldn't move his blade fast enough to block or parry, could only jerk his open hand in front of it-

Won't stop it. Won't even slow it down.

Bugger.

[Kasoria]

Well... right and wrong, on that score.

The witty line would come to him long after. In the moment before the dagger struck home, he had time enough for barely even a thought, let alone a quip. It was nothing but racing lightning now. Faster than a blink; patient as death itself. Every time he found himself in these moments, Kasoria saw a flicker, a whisper, the suggestion of a shadow. As if some hooded and eyeless figure, unseen by all save him, was peering over with eager intent. Long had Vri stalked the Raggedy Man. Many had the Etzori sent to that "god" of mortality, though Kasoria would never call him such without a mouthful of scorn and spite.

He had no quips or comebacks to give Otrar. Just a single thought. One that flashed from his brain to his limbs and then deeper. One that barely had words attached to it. Just an order, really. An order and a command. One he'd been giving himself in every fight throughout his life.

Not today.

KUNK

Men were dying all around him. Some he knew, some he didn't. Some were men he'd come to know in slow, short exchanges. The child of one who'd just learned to walk. The ink etched into another, gained on his twentieth name day. The rest were scum, reavers, raiders, seeking only to despoil and slaughter. He felt nothing but hatred for them, cold though it was. But it was not coldness that drew Kasoria's final act of will before the dagger impaled him. It was the desire to live. An instinct faster than a blade, that sheared away his exhaustion and drew from reserves he'd thought spent. His hand came up and Otrar's grinning face was suddenly lit-

-by a fierce, glowing light-

-and he dagger sunk into something that... was not flesh.

The sailor looked down and saw the small, bowl-shaped Shield cast from Kasoria's hand. Like a tiny version of the one he'd crafted trials before, when he'd been training with Legonne. But it was large enough to catch the dagger he wielded; catch it and stop it a few inches from Kasoria's palm.

Tim didn't stop. It never stopped. It barely even slowed. But how one chooses to see it pass... that matters. Sometimes two souls choose the same speed. Such a moment passed between sellsword and traitor. Otrar looked up into the piqued face of a mage that should have been exhausted and finished with his magic. Shock and disbelief, warred with childish frustration. This was his victory. How had he-

Kasoria just winked. Didn't quip or smirk or curse. Just an arrow-fast snap of his eyelid and then-

-the little man force Otrar's blade up and away with a savage grunt. His Shield vanished as the dagger was knocked away from him. Still gripped by Otrar yet throw up along with his arm, leaving his chest open. The seeping wound in the boy's leg snarled and bit at his senses as he was knocked backwards a few steps. Maybe a trill. Possibly less. Kasoria calculated through the agony, through the howling in his bones that promised him vengeance for forcing them to draw further into his Spark.

He ignored it. Trusted to Traitor Claw and his decades of sheer, stubborn, annoying fucking toughness. His empty hand snapped down to his belt and he drew his cutlass-

-drew and hacked up in the same motion-

-into the air between him and the still-stunned sailor-

-empty of everything... save for Otrar's arm.

The fighting was winding down (or so you could tell, if you'd had enough experience as Kasoria had of slaughter). The scream that rang out over the deck was thus louder, not drowned out by similar cries. The pure, grating despair turned many heads. They would look up and see Kasoria and Otrar standing there, as if frozen in some barbaric moment. Kasoria, with his arm flung up, bloody cutlass gripped tight. Otrar, staring up in teary eyes at the stump halfway down his forearm where a hand and wrist used to be. And as he was turning back-

-Kasoria's cutlass came down again with another banshee cry. Crunching bone and screeching lungs mingled together. Another hand flopped down onto the deck as Kasoria took Otrar's other weapon... among other things. Otrar started to scream again but Kasoria was heedless, roar building in his throat until it exploded out of him with the same force as the killing blow-

-drawing the cutlass close to his side as Otrar staggered, eyes so close to madness now, refusing to believe, refusing to admit to himself he was crippled, ruined, doomed-

THUCCCK

It wasn't a sword made for impalement. It was for hacking, slashing... the gladius would have been far better. But this draw had been easier for Kasoria, and he would need that in the tiny window his Shield had purchased. So the cutlass it was... and hack it damn well did. Both hands were still twitching next to the two men, but now Kasoria buried the cutlass deep into Otrar's belly. Not a quick, professional end. No, he roared as he did. He screamed in the boy's face as he got closer and closer, sword vanishing deeper and deeper, forcing him back as he advanced, until finally-

-Otrar was pinned against the wooden railing behind him, breath coming out in shallow, fetid bursts... and Kasoria's cutlass was jammed up to the hilt in his guts. Man and boy stared at each other for a long, pregnant moment. So much Kasoria wanted to spit out to him. What he'd done; why he'd done it; the cost of treachery. But would it matter, to a many both treacherous and dying, anyway? He doubted it. He was amazed Otrar was still alive, let alone standing. In a few moments he'd bleed out, and then-

Something huge and inhuman crunched something else fleshy and bony into scraps below them. Both men looked down instinctively and saw the black-eyed monster with a mouth as large as a human torso vanish back into the water. It was replaced a moment later by another, and another. A frenzy of implacable beasts, tearing apart bodies and even each other in their eagerness to consume. Now the water was running red, blood trickling off the deck, bodies careening into the bay, and Kasoria-

"They look hungry."

Otrar turned back to him, and the sheer, primal terror he saw in that last look from the boy was worth a thousand pompous words.

"N-No-"

Kasoria let go of the cutlass, stepped back, and with a grunt kicked the hand-less, gut-stabbed sailor off the deck. He watched him splash into the midst of the sharks, overcome by them before he could even come back up for air. But he saw a hand reach out, for just a moment. A scream, muffled by darkness and ocean and ravenous tons of slick, rubbery flesh. A sound beyond words, was that which a man made as he was being eaten alive. Kasoria didn't bother to mourn the loss of the sword. Easy come, easy go.

But it had been worth it.

[Kasoria]

"Cap'n, what're we doin' with the prisoners?"

Captain Senter looked at his helmsman like he'd run mad, rag pausing along his bloody blade as he did.

"Fuck d'we want prisoners for, Mister Kelly? Kill the bastards an' toss 'em over. Sharks still need feedin'."

My, didn't that raise a ruckus? A half-dozen men who'd been jeering and laughing at them not a half-bell before, so certain of victory, who would do the exact same thing to them and chuckle as they'd slit their throats... well, suddenly they thought they were deserving of mercy they would never show. They clamored and cried and begged. They strained against the bonds around their wrists, a sailor behind each one. Kilmain and his sellswords... well, the two that had survived, watched impassively. It was old news to them. Just a repetition, not some fresh outrage. But the sailors? The regular crew of the Lucky Lady?

Captain Senter could see the hard look on their faces now. They didn't have it before. But every man had become a killer that day. They'd seen their pals murdered by sea-bandits. They'd held them as they died; they'd lied and told them they'd be okay. They'd watched them bled out and fell howling on their slayers. He thought for a moment that mercy was what separated them from these pirates. Their willingness to be... civilized.

Then his jaw torqued for a moment. He remembered Legonne. He remembered the eye that he'd left on that quarterdeck, hacked out of his head by that gaunt cunt who called himself captain. He gripped the head of Melaus tighter with his free hand, and shook his own.

"Fuck 'em," he muttered, turning away as the last sobbing crew of the Vulturus Rex were herded to the railing. "Cost you pay when you chose that life..."

He walked over a plank, back to his own vessel. The two ships had been briefly lashed together, but even now the crew were busy separating them. There was no time for pillage or looting, salvaging of any kind. They had to carry their dead back to their side, tend to the wounded, cast off and leave the pirate sloop to drift. Manned by dead men and captained by a headless one. Until one of their fellow carrion hunters or a patrol from Yaralon picked it clean.

The Captain would have liked to bring it in as a prize, but he knew they were running out of time. Sails were in the distance again. Responding to how long it had taken for the Rex to take down this prey. So long a battle must have meant trouble, and the Blackbriners would soon send reinforcements. But by that time, the Lady Luck would be gone, living up to her name... for the most part.

"There you are..."

"Aye. Here I am."

For a moment, he thought Mister Thagoras was wounded far worse than he looked. The little man was sitting down next to Legonne. He was holding one, white hand in his own. His grip was weak. His breathing was shallow. His chest heaved with every exertion and he coughed more than he didn't when he exhaled. But a cursory glance told Senter he wasn't wounded. Then again, when it came to mages...

"You... overstepped?"

"Can't... feel my right leg," Kasoria said with a bleak burst of laughter. "Hope that changes... soon." He shook his head, and it lolled over to peer at Legonne. Staring at nothing with eyes wide open. Never blinking. Never again. "Couldn't not... use me Spark. Not after what he did."

Captain Senter grunted and groaned as he lowered himself to the deck. The helmsman tried to help him but he just shook the man away. "Fuck off, will ya? Jus' get them back on here, cast off, an' let's get gone before their fuckin' friends show up?"

Mister Kelly did as he was told. The screams were dying down, mainly because the sharks were almost finished with their meal. Senter glared over at the lifeless pirate sloop. He'd lost an eye. He'd been cut a dozen times. He'd won, but he'd lost, too... and not just him. Ten of his crew were wrapped in torn-open sacks down below. One of Kilmain's sellswords had been cut-throat and fallen into the water, beyond rescue. And his mage...

"Did he say anythin'?"

Kasoria looked up. He'd never heard softness in the Captain's voice before. He saw his face and there was that same ruthless, domineering control there. But the words were different. They spoke of all the pain his body had endured, and would endure for his men. The grieving he would do, when no others could see it. The sun was rising high now, and no shadows could hide the slaughter, the blood, the bodies. The swarms of sharks and Legonne, sitting up like he was just taking it easy. Mouth slightly open. Eyes immobile. Cold and stiff.

"Before he went?"

Kasoria swallowed a mouthful of spit and blood. He nodded. He told his captain what the mage had whispered to him, when he'd hobbled back to the vessel. Before his leg had abandoned him completely, and the migraines split his head open with every step. Just two mages, sitting side by side, only one would walk away from this ship. Legonne hadn't bothered with anything, not a joke or a plea for thanks. He just told Kasoria what he wanted done, after he died.

He told him what the mage had said. Captain Senter nodded and stood back up. The Lucky Lady was moving again. Casting off from that ruined, blood-slick sloop. Carving through waves made red thanks to their courage, and their sacrifices. Kasoria closed his eyes and let the pounding lessen, dram by dram. As the sun warmed his face and he slumped to the side in exhaustion-

Leaning on his dead friend in his sleep, as they finally arrived in Yaralon together.

[Nursia]

There's one thing I can appreciate: Damage.

Kasoria got severely messed up. He fought tooth and nail for his survival, and he managed to get it, and barely hold onto it, with broken fingers. The sheer amount of overstepping he went through to survive, and still lose people around him, as well as receiving damage to his own body?

It made this series of threads feel as though it had weight. A type of weight that would not have been found had you avoided the backlash. He survived by the skin of his teeth. Bought his freedom with blood, and carved his name out with the bodies of his challengers. And he did not come out clean.

Your rewards are greatly deserved, Kas. That'll do, Kas. That'll do.
Kasoria

Rewards

Knowledges:
Abrogation - Shield: Casting a Hand-sized Shield to Stop a Dagger
Abrogation: Smaller The Cast, the Quicker and Less Straining it is
Blades (Dagger): Under the Armpit, Between the Ribs, Into the Lungs
Dual Wield: Dagger x Karambit
Endurance: "Not Today"
Tactics: If You Don't Need Prisoners, Don't Take Them
Injuries:
Minor fracture - right arm

This will require immediate treatment upon reaching port. The arm will be needed to be immobilized for healing, and will take up to twenty five trials to heal naturally. May be accelerated by Graft users, or any agents that promote bone growth and repair.
Overstepping:
Through some miracle, there appears to be no permanent damage. However.

Kasoria will see that his shields are warped. Casting abrogation is utterly painful, and brings with it a shattering of focus. While he can block attacks still, any damage that comes through now, will be worsened by backlash from the jagged curves, and brutish shape of his new shields. The more he uses magic in this state, the more his prior arthritic state worsens.

This will clear in a season. However, it can be halved by relaxation techniques, intense meditation, herbal medicine, and strangely enough, bloodletting via leeches or any bloodthinning agent.
Renown:
+10
EXP:
+10, can be used for magic

Feedback

Understand that all criticisms are done in good faith. It would be a greater disrespect to not say anything in the face of problems. Please contact me through this account's inbox if you wish to further communicate on the matter of improvement, or if you feel as though anything is unduly harsh.

Player #2

Rewards

Knowledges:
Wealth:
Renown:
EXP:

Feedback

Understand that all criticisms are done in good faith. It would be a greater disrespect to not say anything in the face of problems. Please contact me through this account's inbox if you wish to further communicate on the matter of improvement, or if you feel as though anything is unduly harsh.

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