[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1022401923321708605/1049414026838421534/ArwenHeaderARC1.png]Chapter 35: The Final Test
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“The first documented case of Nabibunshin, or the Norbloods as they came to be commonly called, was perhaps as early as seventy-five hundred pre-breaking in a refrain from the Iastic Battle Hymn recounting their deeds on the storied planes of Fukisouzo.
Though no perfect rendition can be given as the language spoken at the time is now extinct and a written script did not come into being until fourteen hundred pre-breaking, the closest estimation of the passage is thus:
‘Fire and blood and rain, wrought black lightning from above, by onyx eyes and ruined skies, and pyre of mud and slain, Nabibunshin: cold of heart and black of soul; lives perish; souls expire; upon that bloodied black conflagration.’
They are not mentioned again for some time; it is not until the late six hundred pre-breaking that the name is first recorded, some seventy-two hundred years after the aforementioned battle, so feared was even the mention, in tongue or on script, of the Great One’s descendants.” ~ From “The Mysteries of The Grove” by Abunyas Askokal
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“…gin shortly!”
Tobi’s familiar, contemptuously mocking voice filtered into her ears as she blinked her eyes open. A warm breeze brushed against her bare skin, accompanied by something gritty. Sand? She was forced to squint; the effect of an intensely bright, hot light shining from above. The grains blew into her eyes as she jerked her head up from where it lay in the sand, pushing herself to her knees, sputtering and spitting out the coarse granules, brushing it from her face and arms, which she discovered were still covered in now-dry blood that flaked off as she scraped the sand from her. Mom, Dad. Arturs smiling face, slowly melting, flashed in her memory—Sarah, coming at her knife raised, face the picture of wrathful outrage.
She shuddered, bile jumping to her throat, her neck and face tensing, her head fidgeting. Fleetingly, the moment passed, but the feeling of despair that clutched at her heart like a wraith’s hand lingered, its fingers leaving their mark of icy tendrils that shot through her core, freezing her insides. Test? That was all just a test? An illusion? Arwen put her hands on her knees and pushed herself to her feet, feeling dizzy. She gripped her face—a contorted, anguished mess—and ran her hands through her hair, tearing at it, the sharp pain in her scalp distracting her from the bass throbbing in her gut.
“Begin!”
A boot, or something like it, cracked her chin. She was lifted by the force of it; her body corkscrewed through the air, landed, tumbled, rolled through the sand for several feet until stopping in a twisted heap.
The girl, tall for a human, lay face down in the sand some feet away. Pathetic. Is this what the standard for the infamous Meridian Tower is, then? I’ve wasted my time in coming here. Surely Lazraas was mistaken; where are the hegemons of the martial arts, the renowned duelists, the tricksters, and the berserkers? Damzas unsheathed his long Szcorska, its orange blade whipping and licking at the edge, droplets of red liquid condensing on and dripping from its surface, eager for the feeding.
He stalked towards her, decidedly bored, his hooved feet sinking into the soft, warm sand. The empty colosseum spread out about him; the sand, fine, warm, and bespeckled with the protruding hilts, blades, and shafts of many forgotten weapons gave way and sifted underfoot; the quadruple suns, two orange, two red, beat down on his leathery red skin. It felt familiar, an adequate enough facsimile of his home planet that despite his uninspiring opponent, his lips curled up into a smile, revealing his chiseled white teeth.
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He twirled the Szcorska in a series of flourishing spins before straightening his arm to the side and flicking his wrist, whipping the blade with an audible crack down towards the sand. And still she has yet to stand, just floundering there like a uylard gone lame. Entering into the tower unarmed… It’s a disgrace for me to even kill this worm.
Arwen stood, tenderly touching her cheek. It bled profusely, and her hand came away wet with red and exuding the potent scent of fresh blood with which she’d recently become so familiarly acquainted. At least it distracted her from what’d just happened before she’d awoken.
A dura approached her, this one with a dully glowing gemstone in its chest, a strange sword illuminated by a sinister glow reminiscent of burning coals held extended before him. He seemed pleased that she’d finally stood, and had clearly been watching her, waiting for her to get up. Their reputation isn’t just for show, then. She eyed the dura warily, squaring up into her closest approximation of a fighting stance. Its muscled bulged under taught red skin, and its mirrored horns curled into spirals that extended at an angel from the top of its head, black and cruel. From his towering vantage of seven feet of height, his alien eyes, black orbs inside of red sclera, watched her with palpable disdain despite his smile.
The smile transformed into a sneer, and he leapt at her, sweeping his weapon in a flashing arc that caught her across the torso, splitting her open as he dashed past and landed in a spray of misted blood and upcast sand.
The human collapsed forwards behind him, landing with a soft thud in the sand. He didn’t bother turning around. This kill wasn’t worth exaltation, let alone a second thought other than to scoff at the Tower’s first meager offerings to his soulblade. The blood that’d coated its surface quickly burned off, its vapors wafting into the sky. He waited patiently, albeit annoyedly, for the Test Administrator to announce his victory and progress him to the first floor. Nothing happened. The snide voice didn’t speak to him. He flicked his arm straight out into the sky, pointing his blade at the endless blue horizon, then flipped it towards himself and impaled his chest with its tip. The blade sunk into the ruby soulstone in his sternum, evaporating as it returned to the fires of his depths.
Perhaps he was meant to leave this arena—the one sole survivor of a bout to the death sent out to search for the entrance to the first floor. How tiresome. If he’d known that induction into the Tower necessitated such a boorish series of “tests,” then he wouldn’t have come in the first place. Cutting down his friends and family, his brothers in particular, had been a fantasy that he'd long been tempted to make real, true, but to slay a pubescent babe in single combat was a demeaning humiliation that he would never knowingly submit himself to. Damzas huffed, sending streams of hot white steam expelling from his nostrils.
He began to step towards a low stone archway in the wall of the colosseum before him when a piercing pain in his back stopped him in his tracks, and the burgeoning shiny metal tip of a halberd’s long spike caused him to look down at his chest. The bit of metal grew to a span of steel that protruded at least eighteen inches from his skin, dripping with his own crimson blood. He coughed, adding to the spattering of gore on the blade, and tried to move his arms, his legs, anything to retaliate. But they were numb, the use of his body lost to him. He felt himself begin to grow cold, the fires within him that animated his flesh retreating to safety soulstone just a few inches above the spike. I was a fool.
The dura’s knees buckled, and he collapsed forward, wrenching the halberd from her clammy hands. That was fine with Arwen; lifting the thing had been a colossal task, let alone running the tall dura through. She hunched over, hands on her knees, and panted, catching her breath. She stood, and made her way to the corpse, rolling it over with great effort. She frisked around in the dura’s jerkin, finding and taking his wooden token. Next, she scavenged for a few moments in the sand before returning with a short, single-bladed knife. With this she cut away the flesh surrounding the gemstone in his chest and tucked it away, hot, and slick with blood, into her shirt. “A dura’s gem is treasure worth killing for,” the saying went. She’d killed him, though not for the treasure, but would take it all the same.
Having robbed and thoroughly insured that he was dead, Arwen cut a wide scrap of leather from the dura’s chest piece. The slash to her chest, from which she’d inexplicably revived, had left a gaping hole in her already tattered top. She tied it around her chest, fastening it with a knot in front before rotating it to the back then placing her four wooden tokens and the gently pulsing, glowing ruby gemstone under the strap against her body.
Inky black tendrils branched across her skin like shallow roots, originating from her navel and expanding outwards in all directions, down her torso to her waist and sides, down to her legs, and more densely up to her chest. They were gathered thickest in a diagonal stripe where the sword had cut her, packed in densely around the now-perfect flesh of where the gruesome wound had savaged her moments before. They retreated, snaking away from her hands as she tied the leather strap, sinking and disappearing under her skin. She felt an icy coldness in the wake of their passing, like an ethereal trail following after the dark strands.
She spit on the dura’s lifeless face, then turned away, knife in hand, scouring the colosseum’s bench seating for anyone or anything living. There was nothing, not a hint nor sign of life. She glanced towards the arched stone doorway set into the wall in the distance, and began making her way towards it, reveling in the feeling of warm sand on her bare feet, when a ringing voice called out from the air above, projecting loudly in her ears.
“CONGRATULATIONS! You have completed the testing stage! Please remain still while I transport you to the First Floor.”