Solo Down and Dirty

Adapt or Die

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A city floating in the center of a lake, Ravok is a place of dark beauty, romance and culture. Behind it all though is the presence of Rhysol, God of Evil and Betrayal. The city is controlled by The Black Sun, a religious organization devoted to Rhysol. [Lore]

Down and Dirty

Postby Elias Caldera on June 30th, 2018, 1:58 am

Image
5th Day of Summer, 518 AV

“Because I petching said so!”

The foggy darkness of night was cleaved in twain as the front doors of the establishment were kicked open. Shafts of scarring light spilled out along the quiet boardwalk along with a tumult of laughs, shouts, curses, toasts and jeers.

The soldier’s nose crinkled from his shadowy position across the street. He could smell the fetid crowd from here.

Then the window of light was eclipsed, a man bigger even than the frame of the entrance filling it as both hands wrapped themselves around another, smaller, wriggling soul. With that final cursed warning, he flung the squirming sod outside with as much ease as a child would a doll. It was a wet, heavy thunk as flesh met cobblestone and Elias thought he heard something crack along the way. The poor bastard, whoever he was, did not stir from where he had landed, and after a few chimes, Elias realized he would be making his bed there for the night.

The stryfer grinned in the darkness, pulling closer the cloak which wrapped his muscled form and kept the unknowable chill from his pale skin. This Nykan was everything he had heard and more.

Elias smile broadened in the shadows, but it is gone from his scarred face by the time he swept into the flickering street light, alchemical lanterns giving shape to his slithering gait as he crossed the street. With long, sure strides, he approached the Bullyard tavern, eyes shining in sweet anticipation.

Braga.

The man's name was Braga, and around these parts, folks referred to him as the ‘Animal.’



-----------------------------------------------------------------------




Elias remembered stories he’d read as a boy, that when the new arrival stepped into the rough tavern, the whole room went silent as the cutthroats and drunks within sized up the new meat. As he stood on the threshold of the Bullyard, he found an oddly immature part of him hoping for that reaction. The stryfer took a breath, felt his sword and daggers weighing comfortably in their sheaths, and opened the doors.

A gale of noise and stink smacked him across in his face like a flabby, hot fist. Burning tobacco, stale ale, foamy beer, fresh wounds, and salty sweat from a half-dozen species assailed his nostrils. Akalaks, humans, myrians, and other races he had never even seen before were spread out around tables and booths, roaring and jabbering and arguing and drinking, drinking, drinking...

The noise lessened not a decibel with his grand entrance. Sure, a few eyes here and there turned, but those that did turned back after a few moments with merely a shrug or a burp.

Elias deflated minutely.

The soldier attracted a few more stares as he walked to the bar, the torches in there low to give each table its own oasis of privacy. The booths were wreathed in shadows and mystery and he heard a number of alien tongues that he swore he would never fully grasp even if given years to decode them, let alone the few passing moments he was actually granted. This place, being so close to the Pit, often attracted the rougher side of Ravok’s bloody talent, and that usually meant those brought here from far off lands in either chains of steel or their own ambition. Ravok’s arena was far from the grand coliseums of Nyka, but upon its sands men could make their fortunes fighting and killing, just as slaves could find their freedom or prisoners their salvation. When all was said and done however, the Bullyard was where those rowdy thugs and gladiators would wind up, if they were lucky enough to be allowed to leave their cages that was. Naturally, that meant there were more than a few interesting characters to behold within the tavern to say the least, but Elias’s eyes flickered and darted under the cloak's hood in search of one in particular.

There.

That same giant he had seen at the door who’d been handling some unfortunate drunk. Now he was slumped in the corner of the bar where apparently the good seats were being hoarded. What could only be considered a gaggle of questionable women had promptly draped themselves over the gladiator like a blanket of sin and cheap perfume, and by the smile on the man’s face, Elias could tell the giant would have had it no other way. That said, after every hearty bout of laughter, or tongue sucking exchange, his eyes invariably took in the entire tavern, from corner to corner, and made a note of everything they saw.

Like Elias, for example.

The huge man was epic in stature, making the other thugs and slayers in the room look like Elias did to them. Easily more than two feet taller than the Ravokian, Braga was already waiting at the bar when the stryfer took a stool opposite him. His eyes were cool, not friendly, but not necessarily threatening, which was difficult to decipher given the giant’s scarred countenance and naturally terrifying visage. His body was riddled with almost as many scars as Elias’s, and the mage had to wonder how many of those were actually wounds and not just trophies he had taken from his enemies like the stories said.

"You lost boy?" the big man said, his voice a deep brass rumbling that seemed to shake the bottles behind the counter.

"I’m exactly where I need to be."

"Is that so?"

"It is… been looking for you, Nykan."

Slowly, his blue gaze turned on the fighter and the bartender behind the counter who’d sauntered over to take the cloaked man’s order decided better of it and wisely found something else to occupy his time. The mage read the man's body in that moment of surprise: such as the fact it did indeed only last a moment. Then his body tensed, his footing shifted, and those green eyes darted up with that same cold, careful expression.

"Alota folks come looking for Braga. Alota folks are eager to praise his name and suckle on his cock just for a chance to be in the presence of greatness. That what you here for, boy? You come to suck my cock like all the others?"

"I’m a servant of the Ebonstryfe.” The swordsman uttered carefully, but the warrior sitting across from him didn’t even pretend to skip a beat.

“Ah, a pious motherfucker then. Good, you should be accustomed to falling to your knees.”

To say there was a tension in the air would have been laughably inadequate. Elias could feel the telltale twitching in his eye and the grinding of his teeth, but what was absent was the actual rage behind it all. In fact, it was the quite the opposite strangely enough. The boldness -no, the downright balls to which the arrogant petch displayed in his open antagonism told the stryfer that he had indeed found the right man for the job. For any soul to be so brazen in their dealings with one of Rhysol’s holy order had to mean the fool was either insane, or more than just a little confident in his abilities. Elias was here because of the latter.

"You’re a cocky cunt, Braga. I expect you to be able to back up that bravado during our training."

As he expected, that made the big man pause. He studied him with those foreign eyes, far above his own head and face impassive. They flickered down to the weapons adorning the Ravokian’s belt next.

"You’ll be compensated." The other option was starting a brawl in this place to get the man into the ring, so to speak, but given what he'd heard of this place, even Elias wasn’t sure how long he’d last. "In gold."

Braga began to chuckle. A throaty, ragged thing that drew far too much attention to the pair of them, but the scarred sod didn’t seem to notice. His attention as fixated entirely on Elias now. "This is rich. A high and mighty stryfer coming to me for lessons. Fighting lessons, I assume. You don’t look the type who’d be interested in my knitting skills… You really want to learn, then?"

"Yes."

"And you'll take your lumps without crying like a little bitch about it?"

"…I don’t cry."

"Oh, you look like a cryer to me. Maybe you should do a bit of weeping now and get it out of your system before we start. I hate when they cry.”

He understood what was happening of course. The petitioner’s training regime was basically to beat and abuse the new meat until they were mean and tough and riled up enough to fight back out of instinct. He doubted there was little worse this Nykan could do, yet still he found himself rising to the bait despite himself.

"You always jabber on this much before you get petched, Nykan, or are you just nervous?"

Braga took a few more moments, still smiling, but then finally nodded.

"You follow me downstairs, little stryfer, and I’ll show you a thing or two if you really want it. Don’t blame me if by the end you can’t make it back up those stairs though, ‘cuz I ain’t gonna be gentle. You’re in the wrong place for gentle. But if the tiny man thinks that because he wins a couple of fights down on the docks and the shoreline that he can run with the Animal himself, then sure. I’ll be your instructor for the day, Elias. "

The soldier’s mocking grin vanished.

"How did you-"

Braga's hand swooped lazily over the little stack of gold the swordsman man had laid out on the bar, and when his bear paw moved aside, it was gone. He grinned down at the frowning Caldera and winked.

"Word gets around, Elias. And usually it stops here for a drink."

Elias figured gasping would have been a bit too much, but still he felt his charade of surprise did its job well enough. It seemed his old pal Kale had also done his job in the end, spreading the word of the ‘ghost’s’ victories far and wide to the point that even one as prestigious and glorified as Braga had heard about him in the end. He’d have to thank the fat petch for actually keeping his word instead of just keeping the gold he’d been offered for the task.

Now thanks to the wretched old shoresman, Elias was in.


WC - 1740
Last edited by Elias Caldera on August 10th, 2018, 1:08 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Elias Caldera
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Down and Dirty

Postby Elias Caldera on June 30th, 2018, 2:02 am

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Braga lead them down the stone steps, footfalls booming off the walls as they descended further and further beneath the waters of lake Ravok. The basement was more of a cellar, filled with stacks of food stuffs, crates, countless bottles and other sundry items any tavern would require. But amidst it all there was an open area, in the middle, maybe twenty feet squared. It seemed good a place as any to do this.

Elias’s contemplation upon the room’s layout was interrupted when he looked down and saw scratch marks upon the floor, along with a number of dark, dried stains as well.

Yup. This was the right place…

Naturally, he hadn’t expect mats, or training weapons, or any of the safety and rules of the training grounds. That would defeat the purpose, after all. In a brawl, a bar fight, a street scrap, the brutal ruthlessness of a battlefield grapple, there were no rules and you didn't fight on a straw-filled mattress to avoid boo boos. That was why he was here, to challenge himself with something real for once. He’d gone too long without a proper fight, and the meanderings of the stryfe had only made that longing inside him yearn even louder for a true challenge. More than that though, that undying thing inside him yearned to grow, to learn, to be better, and the soldier knew the best way for that to happen was to get down and dirty with only the best -and worst- Ravok had to offer.

Silently, Elias took off his cloak and laid it to one side. His weapons and tools followed next. Braga watched him with a slightly bored expression, then stepped into the torchlight of the makeshift training circle.

"Ready?"

Elias nodded-

-and promptly folded in half as something huge and boot shaped rocketed into his crotch.

"First lesson." Braga announced from somewhere above him. His voice was colder now, teaching, not talking, but still just as cocksure as ever. "Always make the first blow count."

With arms crossed across his barrel-chest, the big man bent slightly at the waist and looked down at Elias, who by some inhuman effort, had managed to get to one knee.

"You petching soldiers are all the same. So smug and self-satisfied with the fact that you’re ‘nothing like those Syliran knights’ you’re always going on about. You think you’re better because you’re not restricted by things like honor and virtue, but you know what’s just as bad as honor, boy? Pride! Pride keeps you from striking out dishonorably, pride keeps you from doing the deplorable and the disgusting, and pride gets you petching gutted by champions like me, because we don’t petching bother with such stupid concepts. A fight is a fight, and you win anyway you can, because if not, you deserve to- hey, you catching all this down there, choir boy?”

"Pe-… petch… yo-… "

The next kick that followed caught him hard in the gut, a second explosion of pain he didn’t think could match the first.

"Next lesson. Always kick a man while he's down. There’s nothing quite so satisfying in this world."


WC - 524
Last edited by Elias Caldera on June 30th, 2018, 2:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Elias Caldera
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Down and Dirty

Postby Elias Caldera on June 30th, 2018, 2:02 am

Image
It took a good long while before the world had the decency to stop spinning. It took even longer still before Elias managed to dislodge the remnants of his testicles from his stomach where they had retreated. Eventually however, the soldier was back on his feet again, for all the good he felt it did him.

Braga stood back and watched him carefully, eyes still strangely sullen and uncharacteristically neutral. He didn't make a move.

"My god!" The Nykan exclaimed in shock. “I think I actually fell asleep there waiting on you… Are you ready for more, buttercup?”

Elias mumbled a particularly venomous curse from under his breath and nodded, quietly grateful he hadnt’ eaten anything before he’d come here.

Gritting his teeth against the anguish, he braced himself.

Braga swept forward, leading with those tree trunk legs, but his arms were already coming up. The sheer size of the man was his biggest advantage; he simply filled one’s vision, blocked out everything else, made one panic. And in those tentative ticks when you weren't planning or moving, the animal seized its prey.

Well Elias was no prey.

The soldier sidestepped to the right, pivoted, and brought up his knee at the same time, slamming it into the Nykan's side as he escaped the giant’s reach. The big man merely grunted like one would when stung by a bee. He didn't even bother to swing, instead answered the strike by merely cocking back his elbow good and hard before nailing Elias in the jaw with it.

The Ravokian staggered back, tendrils of darkness invading the edges of his vision, but he swam against the current, forcing himself to feel the cold stone, the icy cellar, to hear the calm, steady breath from Braga interlaced with his own panting inhalations. He found the things he needed to keep his head above water just long enough for sense to return.

Reclaim the initiative! He screamed at himself.

"It's not just size." Braga said, turning to face him again, coming closer with apish hands outstretched instead of balled into fists. "Or speed. It's experience. Fight after fight after fight, every scar a lesson learned, every bruise and broken bone teaching you. Making you harder."

He lashed out with a brutal kick that would have sent Elias's balls into orbit, but the Ravokian indeed was learning, and pivoted away once more… only to find a left hook waiting for him.

"And not holding back." The Nykan pressed as Elias yelped in pain, his side burning as he hobbled back and away. "You only really learn this stuff in real fights. Kind of fights you don't walk away from if you lose."

He glided forward, impossibly light on his feet, and swept up an errant bottle nearby with one hand, hurling it overarm at Elias’s head as if it were a pitcher’s mit. The swordsman barely dodged it just in time, glass and stinking liquor splattering all over him, blinding him…

In hindsight, Braga's headbutt could have been much worse.

"Third lesson. Everything is a weapon, and every weapon at your disposal needs to be used."

Elias staggered against the wall, blinded and helpless. The headbutt was expertly placed, especially considering Braga could have easily smashed his nose through his brain. This time, it was just above his nose, hard enough to hurt like hell and send an explosion of stars and pain crisscrossing across his vision. Mercifully, he barely felt the twin thunder blows to his sides that followed.

The Ravokian sunk down, back to the wall, blood running into his open mouth as the Nykan towered impossibly tall over him, not even breathing heavily.

"Are we learn-"

Elias didn't waste the brief opening he had and slammed the sole of his right foot into the massive man's left shin without a moment’s hesitation.


WC - 640
Last edited by Elias Caldera on June 30th, 2018, 2:37 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Elias Caldera
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Down and Dirty

Postby Elias Caldera on June 30th, 2018, 2:02 am

Image
Braga grunted, taken unawares, but it didn’t last. He was staggered -Elias not getting so lucky to fell him unfortunately- but it at least granted him a brief, fleeting window for another short jab under his opponent’s other kneecap.

That dropped the petcher! The knuckle laced punch had sent a ripple of agony up the big man's legs and forced him to totter backwards. Elias wasted no time in bracing himself against the wall as he fell into a crouch. With a silent vow of vengeance dripping from his bloodied lip, the chaon launched himself like a lightning bolt right into Braga’s legs.

Even at seven foot and pushing gods knew how many hundreds of pounds, the impact knocked the big man backwards, ruining whatever tenuous hold he had left on his balance. He went down with a satisfying thud that shook every bottle the basement held host to. It sounded like applause to the soldier as he scrambled across his host’s prone form to assume a more dominant position.

Too slow.

With two short, vicious blows Braga managed to bring his cupped hands crashing against both the Ravokian's ears simultaneously, the pressure alone making the smaller man howl. The gladiator grabbed Elias’s shoulders next, feet getting purchase on the stone under the stunned stryfer, then bending abruptly, as the giant threw the unsuspecting opponent up and over him like a sack of grain.

The Ravokian was reminded for a split second of the man he had seen go flying out of the Bull Yard’s front door, just before he crashed into a crate of what he assumed was potatoes.

"Very good, kid." Now the words come through just a little more exhausted, which to Elias felt like a massive compliment. "Improvise. Be inventive. No rules or conduct here. Just what you can do, and what you can't."

Groaning, groping, on hands and knees, Elias felt a huge hand grab his wrist and jerk it behind his back. He was hauled to his feet like one would a child, feeling rather than hearing a voice from two feet above his own head. In way, Braga reminded him of his father -his true father- Caiden. Brutal in his methods at times, but brutally efficient in getting a point across. The Caldera had always learned things best by learning them the hard way, and Elias was no different in that aspect. Like the Nykan had said, every bruise was a lesson learned, every scar and moment remembered. There was nothing lost upon the pale man in those moment, even as his body was ravaged and flung about. He saw it all, felt it all, and in the end, he would understand it all, for that was how it worked. Nothing worth gaining was easy in a life like Elias’s. This- all of it, was just par for the course.

"Had enough? Those things aren't-"

Elias snarled and gargled blood at the same time, then reached behind him with his free hand, smashing a white knuckled fist in the crotch behind him.


WC - 509
Last edited by Elias Caldera on June 30th, 2018, 2:37 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Elias Caldera
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Down and Dirty

Postby Elias Caldera on June 30th, 2018, 2:03 am

Image
Now that got more of the reaction he was expecting. At least initially in any case.

Braga made a noise somewhere between a grunt and a choked squeal, shuddering as the impact ran its course. The grip on the Ravokian's arm loosened just a fraction and Elias tore his wrist free, turning to drive an elbow into the bastard’s face and put an end to all-

"Not bad." Braga growled, actually smiling, then jerked his knee upwards into Elias's chest before the soldier had a chance to react.

The power of the blow lifted Elias clear off his feet and knocked loose every ounce of wind from his lungs. He doubled over in mid-air, Braga's arms already moving to grab under his shoulders and hurl him into the nearby stone wall.

A splat.

A crunch.

This time, when the swordsman clattered to the floor below, he did not rise again.

What followed was a familiar blackness. It was in fact a darkness he knew all too well. Sounds and shapes and colors mixing and merging, coming to nothing. Then... suffocation. Drowning.

"Wakey wakey..."

Braga finished pouring the water on his face, jerking Elias back to reality. He extended the bottle, and once Elias remembered his own name and what realm of existence he was on, he cautiously took the proffered drink.

He remembered how his hands worked, too. Great.

"Petch."

Braga let him get a few slugs down his throat before he spoke up.

"I’m surprised Ravokian."

"That I’m alive?." As was he.

Braga chuckled, taking a swig from his own bottle, containing the polar opposite of water. "Surprised you haven’t started barking or threatening me yet. It’s usually how you lot handle things when they don’t go your way."

Elias had to chuckle back, letting his head flop backwards onto the cool stone. His body felt like one big bruise. His back, his sides, his legs, all sore and groaning almost as loudly as he knew he would be tomorrow morning. But his mind... that was still sharp. And it had grown a little wiser.

"I came to learn. I think I did."

"Ha! My pleasure, you little shyke. Been a while since someone your size managed to get the drop on me like that. I suppose you want me to call that ‘impressive’ or something so that you feel like you got something out of this beating, but it was just luck, nothing more."

Elias grimaced. He’d heard the gladiator was a man who’d long ago squarely planted his head up his own ass, but by all the gods good and evil, the man was petching relentless. “Lets go again then and see how lucky you are, Nykan.”

There was a pause, then laughter, deep and bellowing. “Oh, a glutton for punishment, eh? Sure, I’ll indulge you, punk. Get your ass up and lets do this-”

“Tomorrow!” Elias hastily interjected, groaning painfully from his spot on the floor. Maybe he’d been a bit to hasty with his response. “Perhaps you could indulge me… tomorrow.


WC - 506
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Elias Caldera
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Posts: 901
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Joined roleplay: September 14th, 2013, 1:28 am
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Down and Dirty

Postby Ruvya on August 25th, 2018, 8:30 pm

G R A D E
Rhetoric +1
Socialization +1
Intelligence +1
Negotiation +1
Acting +1
Endurance +2
Unarmed Combat +4


Intelligence: Planting a fabricated reputation to cultivate trust
Braga 'The Animal'
Negotiation: Stating concisely what you want
Negotiation: Offering gold
Acting surprised when you’re in the know
Word travels in Ravok through its taverns
There are no rules in a real fight
Unarmed Combat: Make the first blow count
Unarmed Combat: Always kick a man when he’s down
Pride & honor get you killed
Unarmed Combat: Evade and attack combo
Endurance: Fighting pain by focusing on other senses
Brawling: Everything is a weapon
Unarmed Combat: Kick ‘em in the knees to down an opponent
Braga: Efficient, if brutal, tutor


Elias will suffer bruising and swelling in varying degrees, heaing in fifteen days with rest.



If you have any queries about your grade feel free to shoot me a PM!
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