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Gray was at a loss before the fight had even begun. His posture had been completely relaxed as he had not expected an enemy among the the scrawny village folk before him, even the merchant had been on the frail looking side and had not appeared threatening at all. Then suddenly he was gone; replaced by a man you could find a picture of in any dictionary under "dangerous". He had the stereotypical look of a thug: facial scars, greasy and unkept long black hair, an arrogant looking face and to top it all off a sneer any villain would be proud of. None of that particularly bothered Gray though, what gave him pause were the eyes. Just like him this man had white pupils, but while both Gray and Jaze had golden irises, this mans were black. The combination was eerie, it gave the impression that the eye was inside out.
While Gray's wits were still scattered his opponent lifted his left hand to chest height, pointing his hand at Gray. As he did so the dense black fog that had been coalescing around his fist exploded outward completely enveloping the man in a thick black mist. The mist persisted less than a second, and when it scattered the man was nowhere to be seen.
His mind screamed out so loud Gray was sure his ears would bleed. When the man vanished somehow he must have moved to flank him, though he couldn't see it Gray was certain that dagger was reaching out to end him. He did the only thing could, he launched himself forward and at the ground. Trying to get outside the range of that knife as fast as possible. Cold steel ripped a shallow gash across the back of his neck. Gray shivered, if he had been even a tenth of a second slower that slash would have severed his spine. As he reached the ground Gray tucked his shoulder,rolled across his back and sprung back to his feet facing his opponent, the wound on his back burning.
"Really? You evaded my backstab? Your an agility type too eh? What a pain in the ass." The man in black spoke rather nonchalantly, and curiously he had a slight southern accent to his speech.
Gray spoke up, addressing the people from Festid. "Get away from here. Now." With that said he disregarded their existence completely, focusing solely on the danger before him. Shifting his weight backward and holding the massive club in front of himself he adopted a defensive posture. If his opponent could vanish at will then he needed to be prepared to counter immediately.
The man in black clicked his tongue in annoyance and spoke again, "A tree branch? Seriously?" A sigh escaped him as he continued, "No idea how some noob right off the boat pissed off every Messenger on the continent, but a bounty is a bounty. Sorry, but I'll be killing ya now."
As the man finished speaking he lunged forward. And left. And right. At the same time. Like three separate people occupying the same space were attacking from three different directions simultaneously. It was an act that spit on the laws of physics, and to Gray it served to confirm beyond the last shadow of doubt that this world was operating under different rules than Earth had been. And also that these rules were complete and total bullshit.
Gray was saved not by superior skill, strength or speed. But by something else equally important: the fact that he was packing a seriously big piece of wood. The three incoming attacks were simple thrusts, had they been individual attacks they would have been easily parried. Even with the three coming at once they were still straightforward and arranged such that by turning the huge club horizontally all three attacks were parried at once.
Three blades struck Gray's club at precisely the same time as the three men re-converged into one again. As the they recombined, there was a slight popping sound and the man's knees bent low and shoulders hunched slightly. The whole being in three places at once thing appeared to have significant drawbacks for the user.
"No fuckin' way, that was my best skill!" The man groaned in disbelief.
Not missing the opening Gray pivoted on his back leg swinging the club in a huge horizontal arc with all his strength.
The branch impacted the man in black squarely in the right arm with such destructive force that the arm, shoulder and an eight inch chunk of his chest cavity was torn off armor and all. Ribs and the remnants of the shattered club spun through the air as his arm rotated once seemingly in slow motion before landing fifteen paces away with a wet spattering sound.
The now one arm man coughed wetly and puked up a large amount of blood. As he fell to his knees he managed to speak once more seeming to himself in disbelief, "He one-shotted me with a fucking toothpick? Bullshi..." Even more blood poured from his nose and mouth and his body went limp.
Stolen story; please report.
As the mans final words left his lips the world underwent a peculiar change. Everything suddenly went silent, looking around the entire area seemed to be frozen in time. Then like a switch was flicked Gray's entire world became pure, perfect black. There had been no sense of falling this time, but he was certain this was the same blackness that had brought him to Crucible, though he felt some discrepancies from the last time.
The first thing different was he could clearly perceive another person here with him, previously if Jaze had not spoken to him, Gray would have never known he wasn't alone. The second difference he detected was heartening, he was aware of his own body. When he saw the blackness his initial thought had been that he had somehow died. Gray focused his thoughts, trying to recall the sensation of speaking telepathically, "Jaze?"
Gray abruptly felt a third presence joined them in the darkness, it answered in Jaze's voice, "Ahhhh.... Gray, didn't take long for you to kill a fellow Traveler did it? You've been in my world less than half a day and your already making your first trade." He sounded significantly less irritated this time, almost friendly; it reminded him of the way one would speak to a dog.
While Gray was trying to get his thoughts together the third voice broke into the conversation, it was unmistakably the man in black he had fought moments ago, "Hey. Whoever just spoke, who are you and how the hell are you here? Nobody but us should be able to get in here."
"I am the Messenger that brought him to Crucible, that is all you need to know. Now be silent until you are called to trade." Jaze's voice was no longer friendly, he had sounded outright hostile.
His tone softened slightly as he addressed Gray, no longer friendly but not hostile either, "I have pushed the other one out of sync with us temporarily so I can tell you some things, there isn't a great deal of time for explanation so just listen for now. First off; there is currently a fairly modest bounty for killing you, placed by order of Kamell; the God of this world. Though to be honest If he hadn't already placed one on you I would have. Its always been my policy to give a present to my new Travelers, makes things exciting you know. Secondly, unless you want to meet a very messy and very permanent end do not speak my name to any other Traveler. Due to certain.... circumstances if it were known that you were brought by me if would needlessly complicate your new life. And lastly killing or being killed by a traveler will cause both of you to enter this place, it is only in these mind-spaces that id can be directly exchanged."
There was a brief pause before he continued taking on a lecturing tone, "Id is essentially crystallized emotion, and for Travelers it is a very important resource. Mainly for two reasons; firstly, the more id you acquire the better your physical and mental forms will be. That is to say acquiring id will directly make you stronger. The second reason, is that it is used should you be killed to pay for the right of resurrection. If killed by natural causes... that is to say being killed by anything not a Traveler or Messenger, then the value of your life in id will go directly to whatever God rules the world you die on, and you would return to life in the location you first arrived in Crucible at. If killed by a Traveler though the value of the losers life in id is instead given directly to the victor. If the one killed does not possess id enough to pay his life's value then any id he had is given to the victor, then the soul is broken...
Gray was stunned, resurrection was possible in this world? One just needed sufficient id and they would be largely immortal. Jaze interrupted his thoughts though, continuing to speak, "One final thing before I depart, the value of a Traveler's life is equal to the potential bartered for before arriving in Crucible. If I were to estimate the value in id of the man you just killed his life's value would be roughly seventy id. But your trade with me was enormous, if you are killed it will take at least a hundred thousand id to pay your life's price." Jaze, the bastard was actually laughing now, "Try not to die Gray. Hah!" As he continued to laugh Jaze's presence vanished.
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