There wasn't anyone within the slave city or the arena of free folk that wouldn't recognise the owner of the clenched golden fist, there was only one true overlord of Fortune's Favour and it was the very same jaundiced man that had lorded his power over each of his combatants when they were first sold. Whilst his powers were telekinetic, the strength he possessed was still vast. Aged and wrinkled, he didn't have the frightening stature of those with paths attuned to a greater level of physicality. Still, the man was many magnitudes stronger than the strongest of human men to have ever walked the face of Earth.
The golden fist of the Overlord clenched tighter the longer Team Rictus survived. Each of them was a problem that would have been nice to have taken out in one fell swoop but now... they were working together, working symbiotically to remove the weaknesses of each other. Having to maintain the facade that he enjoyed the chaos as much as the VIPs felt like a cage that he couldn't escape. Normally it wasn't an act but each of the characters below were starting to affect his bottom line. Some might consider these particular specimens uninteresting but it was his sponsors that were causing the problems for once.
"If it were just the ugly freak it wouldn't be a problem, Chrysos," his sponsors had said, leveraging his birth name. "It's getting too difficult to fix the matches, figure a way to get rid of the help if you're not competent enough to kill the bloomer."
He had fostered an array of talents, some of which the people loved and others that they loved to hate. These so-called "sponsors" had decided to "protect" Fortune's Favour now that he had taken in the low-level nuisance Eros had brought him. He was suddenly bound by their interests and, apparently, there were several transgressions he had made. He was fostering cultist sympathisers. All these oddities and unique individuals had to be culled. It was a travesty to art, to entertainment, to the majesty of fate and fortune that he had built.
Watching them stand in front of the unflinching remains of the wolf-like fleshling construct, he was almost proud of the little beasts. He would like to have been proud. Instead, he was throttling a delicate flute of wine.
'Not in front of the crowds,' Chrysos, the Jaundiced Overlord breathed deeply to himself.
Levitating less than one hundred metres from the arena floor, the scale of the carnage would capture the imaginations of each of his guests. Being so close, he could snuff them out himself, almost effortlessly. If he hadn't built his business on cultivating fate, he would have. It was a prison he had unknowingly made for himself.
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Wracked by the pain of the mana toxicity's extraction Otis was trapped with his thoughts.
"I want you to prove you’re not totally worthless."
The words echoed inside his head now. He had thought about what Eros had said a lot now and he felt just as powerless as he had when he first heard them.
"I want you to be worth the effort it took to save you."
Support, ancillary, blacksmith. The way his path had been described had been with such derision. The stares within The Veil to the feeble expectations anyone had of him was crushing. Not one of them knew what he was capable of, what he had now endured. Tiera and Suzia seemed to hold out some hidden hope for him but it was always in regard to this far-flung eventuality. He was more than that.
"I want you to prove you’re not totally worthless."
Soaked in a thick sheen of sweat, Otis forced his eyes open. Behind the blue of his eyes, an ocean of resolve was building.
Thinking back, Otis realised that he had overcome insurmountable odds, that none of them would have thought he would have survived. Even when he was first confronted by Eros he'd wounded a man who'd be considered a God on Earth. In times gone by Eros would have been worshipped as the divine, even now Hollywood built movies based on comic book legends that were born better or from somewhere beyond the likes of Earth. He had killed a Guardian of Nathel... Whatever the fuck that meant. Even with his powers dampened, Atros wasn't a fight he was meant to win, Otis was sure of that now. It would have been a shoddy deal for Eros but he was sure that Atros was meant to have won the glory of killing a late bloomer. He had not fallen. He had been pitted against beasts and men the likes of who almost succeeded in killing him. He had friends, now at risk, who stood up for him.
He would not fail them or himself.
If he ever escaped here, returning to The Veil might be a sanctuary from the perils of his new reality but he wouldn't go back as he was. No, he would have to show them what worthless looked like and it would start with Eros; the man who sold him.
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Surrounded by the hoard Team Rictus resembled a five-man legion. They knew each other's strengths and their weaknesses. Having adapted their fighting style from an all-for-themselves approach, they had implemented a proper strategy. The hoard battered away at their formation but from half the area they were before. Using the wall of the arena to block off one-half of the possible directions of attack, they now formed a semi-circle.
Bolo and Nightmare endured the majority of the incoming hoard, as the two with the highest levels of physical resistance. The took the brunt of the attack, neutralising the inertia of the momentum, before directing them to their makeshift kill box. It was exhaustive work but significantly easier than either of them fighting as they were. Whilst Nightmare was able to adapt, his best method of fighting the hoard's bizarre physiology was explosive. Neither he nor Bolo had the stamina or mental fortitude required to maintain that kind of offensive.
Rage and Mooch were where the real firepower came in. Hiding behind the two tanks of the team saved Rage a ludicrous amount of energy. She was a glass cannon by trade and it served them best to rely on her ability to shred through the hoard without taking on the strain of dodging or worse yet taking a hit. She had the opposite problem to Nightmare and Bolo. Whilst they had good endurance specialised in taking a beating, she was purpose-built for power. Endurance was measured in equal measures, the ability to take a hit or persevere and the ability to bear the strain of using abilities frequently. Whilst two sets of people had the same endurance score it may be for entirely different reasons.
Similarly, Mooch, had now realised that his damage output against the hoard was poor, without the possibility of sniping critical organs, but he could disable them if he was clever. Melting the fetid pale flesh of the constructs they would clump up and stick to themselves or other constructs. Using similar duck-and-weave tactics to Rage, he was able to target and attack constructs with arrows or mana smothered punches. His speed and agility as the 'Violent Whisper' was being made of in a way he ordinarily couldn't, thanks to the near mindless approach of the hoard.
Compared to the more active role he was used to taking, Zlatan, the face of Team Rictus, had taken a backseat role. He took on some of the incoming hoard that slipped between Bolo and Nightmare and he used concussive punches to deal with the few that escaped Rage and Mooch but his main role was far more passive. Fueled by his minimal combat, Zlatan's aura was deployed, slowly draining the clumps of immobile constructs and continually nullifying the efforts of those that managed survive a first bout against their formation. His aura wasn't all-encompassing but, compared to the first twenty minutes of the bout, it was able to continually afflict the constructs far more meaningfully than before. Disabling the constructs before they crumbled over time, he barely expended a fraction of his previous efforts.
31:12
"Almost halfway!"
Given the reduced activity in his current role, Zlatan had replaced Mooch as informant and commander.
Albeit unused to his current role, Zlatan couldn't help but smile. They were nearly half way and none of them felt remotely as exhausted as they had in the first round. He could feel hope blooming in his gut... at this rate, they might just survive.
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The toxicity had permeated more of his physiology than it had before, so the treatment had taken longer than Otis had wanted but he was free now. Coated in smears of grime from the Workshop, he lay back against the bench. The world around him seemed to vibrate as his blood simmered in his veins. Whilst he was exhausted, Otis could already feel the effects of being alleviated from the constant fatigue of mana toxicity. The world felt clearer, brighter even. The frothing migraine that stubbornly bore into his brain was only a whisper of what it was before. Out of breath from the experience, his breath didn't hitch or falter. Existing as he was almost felt meditative.
Only the sudden chill of an invisible presence told him that it was time to leave, quickly. Cured and conscious it was time for him to leave. The customer on the receiving end of his mana toxicity lay unconscious and twitching but for him there was no use to his continued presence.
Either his escort shielded him from view or he had gotten very lucky but Otis didn't see Tarot in the depths of the workshop. Thrust upon the hopeless cries of the bodies surrounding the workshop, there was little more to think on but how to improve. Otis didn't know how long he had been in there but he hoped that his companions had returned or were in the final throes of defeating their opponents. Either they would be present or he ought to work to make them proud in their absence.
It was frustrating to lose the time but shirking off the need to shy away from using mana felt like a breath of fresh air. It had been a short time since he hadn't known anything other than life as a mortal but Otis was surprised at how his powers felt part of him already; losing them would be like losing a hand. He was his powers and they were an extension of him.
'Focus,' Otis reminded himself.
He had gone to the workshop to buy himself time to practice his craft. Now that he could, he had to press the advantage.
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Otis Manning (Class: N/A)
Level : 2
Clan/ Sect : [Slave of Fortune’s Favour]
HP: 15/15 MP: 8/8
Status:
Strength 7 Agility 5 Endurance 8 (10) Intelligence 7 Will 8 (10) Charisma 5
Characteristics:
Undying Resolve [I], (endurance, will + 2)
Characteristics:
Undying Resolve [I], (endurance, will + 2)
Skills:
Manipulation (level 3)
###(Undiscovered)###
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Smiling at his renewed status, felt his new skills calling out to him. If he could add another string to his bow he might win the next bout by more than just the skin of his teeth. As he wandered back to their encampment, he looked down at the rags he was wearing. Otis knew he needed a good weapon and a new skill but he needed more than a good offence. He needed more than bare skin and a couple of metal plates to protect him. If he fought anything but perfectly he'd be just as dead even if he had all the skills and mana in the world available to him. Ideally, he would make a complex suit of armour fit for a space-faring apex predator but he would need to design something that could accommodate his measly stats and craftmanship. What was the point of armour if he was knocked down and unable to get back up, or he was exhausted simply by wearing it for too long.
Channeling a fresh flow of mana, the churn felt like a breath of fresh air. He needed to act, not to think. By the time he arrived back at his shack, he was desperate to make a start, to impact real chance. Grabbing his shield, Otis sunk his mana into the metal and set his gaze inward.