Drome 5: Undersea Palace

[Lordxana0]

Welcome to the Palace of the Undersea Lords. In this massive domed city their are thousands of buildings left behind by those who once lived their, the city is defended on the inside by water canons with the pressure to punch a hole through iron. But why would anyone leave this paradise under the water? Well could be the tax rates where just to high. But it is more likely because their are massive cracks in the dome that are leaking water in. If a fight goes on for too long then the entire dome will be completely filled to the brim with water. Sea water, and of course you never know what is around the bottom of the sea.

Current Fight: Sicon vs. Qara
Current Champion:
Next update: 0/3
(no posting unless for an official match)

[Victin]

Acheron spawned in a crossing, dressing an orange hawaiin T-shirt with yellow flowers, beige boardshorts and white shoes, asindes from looking like a walking jewelry shop, wearing plenty of necklaces, bracelets, earrings, anklets, rings and whatnot. There was a golden lamp post, whose top was a glass orb with some kind of bioluminescent algae inside. The crossing was composed of an avenue, filled with skycrappers, and of a street, with tall buildings. At the end the avenue there was a huge library, greco-roman style. It was colored blue and had statues decorating its entrace, even though some of them were destroyed. Up in the sky, a huge glass dome stood. Some of it wasn't lit, mostly where there were cracks. Most of the cracks let the water inside the city. Currently the water level was slightly above his feet. "Whoa, this surely looks like home for me."

Acheron started to walk in the opposite direction of the library. He could see a waterfall coming from the sky at the corner of the dome which he was walking to (metaphorical corners, mind you), and that side of the city was mostly unlit. As he walked, the water level increased a few centimeters, so he probably spent a few minutes all by himself. He stopped at another crossing, close to a lamp post whose orb was broken, but still produced a faint white light. By this point, there were only small houses around him. The edge of the dome was some blocks away from him, and a small waterfall could be heard in the darkness.

Acheron looked around. Where the hell is my enemy? Wait a minute... she could be some kind of assassin. Damn. He kneed to the ground, and put his hand in the water. A weak energy wave flowed through the water. It didn't produce any light nor sound, but did it reach his enemy, Acheron would know. Where could she be?

[Scarab]

The first thing she noticed was that she was up to her ankles in water.
That was inconvenient.
Still, it was surprisingly light, considering how deep they must have been below sea level: deep enough that there were the shapes of creatures beyond the thick glass that Gallium really didn’t fancy meeting face to face. Gallium was sure she could feel her ears popping just from being here. ‘Just as well you can feel sound as well as you see it, otherwise that could be a problem.’ The buildings were tall, overshadowed by the glittering height of the dome.

‘What is it you’ve gotten yourself into, Gally? You won the last fight, but it wasn’t what you expected, was it? And what next? A saints damned telekinetic, knowing my luck. Well... no sense complaining about it now.’

Another surprise was how much it looked like a normal civilisation down here, just... with a lot more lichen and cracked stone. What had happened to the people, she wondered? Had they been driven out for these battles? Or had they gone long ago? certainly the city didn’t look lived in by anything but a few fish swimming around her ankles.
The building at the end of the deserted road seemed almost like a church, or a temple maybe, the walls were crumbling and there was no door – just a stone archway leading into waterlogged pews, leading back to an ancient, yet sturdy looking bell tower and spiral staircases going who knew where. ‘I wonder if fish ever feel the need to say their prayers?’ Gallium sniggered to herself. There was no graveyard: just what looked like a large, flooded garden complete with the occasional water worn memorial. The entire structure was fairly large, at least thirty metres high, eighty wide, and a waterfall poured down over the far back end of the building from one of the more sizable cracks.
As an afterthought, Gallium took off her waterlogged shoes and socks before entering the church. Partly out of some idea that it was probably respectful to do so, and also because... well, her shoes were soaked through anyway. She sang a quick note in the doorway, watching the vibrations shudder... she had hoped there would be more of an echo so deep down, but the water muffled the reverberations of her vocal energy, making it no more powerful than it would be in the absence of echoes. 'Drat... no echo close to the water there’s that advantage out the window, then.'

[Victin]

Nothing. Pretty, damn nothing. If his enemy was there, she wasn't touching the water. Damnit. I still don't know where she is. Well, she could try to attack me right now, so better go to where I have an advantage. Acheron walked forwards. Moving through the darkness he passed through a few houses. They had small fences, so even though the street came to an end he had no problem jumping over them. He reached an unlit street after a few blocks, and at the end of the street, a house stood, with a collapsed ceiling and the waterfall falling directly inside it. Even for Acheron it was a bit too dark. I guess I started getting used to the light. Too used to the light. Oh, whatever... Acheron stopped outside the house and turned behind. Guess I'll just have to wait then. He supported himself on the wall and created a tiny blue flame on his hand, while one of his many rings shone very faintly.

[Scarab]

Gallium was used to waiting.

She was good at it, although she didn’t used to be. At the Open Halls where she learned to hear the world’s heartbeat, they had held masses for hours on end. The students and tutors alike sitting around in silence for hours on end and Gallium had fidgeted and squirmed the whole time, for a few weeks. Except eventually she realised that it hadn’t been silent at all. You just had to listen closely enough. Even at rest, everything moved and thus, everything shifted energy and most things produced even a slight sliver of sound. Everything made noise, either its own, or due to everything else crashing against it. By being so quiet you could hear the silence.

She was good at waiting. After ten hours or so, though, she had to say even she was running out of tolerance. She stretched out in the space of the tower, looking around in boredom. Her body willed her to move, to go track her enemy down before the monotony made her complacent and they got the drop on her anyway.

‘Oh... because that’s clever. Remember what happened last time?’ a voice piped up in her head. ‘You wandered, you stayed too low to ground, and you were very nearly overpowered by a magically enchanted robot with the strength of ten men! And you know nothing about your opponent this time, either... They could have an advantage here, or they could not. After all, didn’t that cyborg have one over on you in the city of steel?’

Still, it didn’t seem fair somehow, to sit here in the silence waiting while her opponent was probably doing the same thing.

‘Perhaps... perhaps I should give them a hint. Let them come to me.’ She pondered this for a few moments, then stood, curled her bare feet against the damp, mossy stone, and climbed further up into the tower. When she was as high as she could go, she looked out into the city again. It was strangely beautiful in a dim, cerulean, several-billion-tonnes-of-water-held-back-by-a-glass-wall- sort of way. The world, and all the vibrations within it, was connected to her through only the stone beneath her bare feet, and Gallium saw it all via a kind of bizarre synaesthesia. The world shuddered with sound waves she could see, the waterfall pouring down the towers behind her echoed with blues and gold.

She could see nothing of her opponent, but there was no way he wouldn’t be able to hear her, if she called.

Gallium found a beat in the sound of the water shimmering and vibrating behind her, drawing the noises into a thin vibrating shield around her body as she began to sing.

[Victin]

Acheron waited and waited. Until the point a beautiful melody was sung. But before he could 'squee' over Princess Mononoke's theme he went back to his senses. "What the hell does my oponent want to achieve by singing? Mind control can't be, I don't feel anything." Hundreds of possibilities flashed through Acheron's mind. He had no idea what his oponent wanted to achieve. But he wouldn't stay still now that he had an idea where his enemy was. With his free hand (the one that didn't held the flame), he created an orb of cyan light, that seemed to be made of eletricity, making all the seven rings in said hand glow faintly. He threw the orb in the water a few meters ahead of him. Acheron did a short hand motion upwards, and around the sphere raised what looked like a 3 meter tall humanoid tadpole, made of water. It had disproportionally huge arms, no kind of facial features and no feet, being connected to the water through one straight flux almost as large as him. The orb rest within his "torso".

Acheron proceeded to cast one last spell at his puppet before sending it towards his enemy. "Seafoam Shroud" A quick, although small flash of white light shone in his free hand. The whole creature got "blurry" for a second, and then it became the same color of the water it was made of. Althought it was redundant, it hid the energy orb within the elemental. "This should be enough for now." Acheron closed his left eye, and started making short movements with his right hand's wrist and fingers. The azure flame on his right hand didn't even twitch. Now all he had to do was to wait until his scout found his target. As the puppet reached the end of the street, it merged with the water on the floor, and run swiftly as a wave towards the beautiful music.

[Scarab]

Gallium had enjoyed singing since she was a child, before she realised why the tables and chairs moved and her skin started prickling whenever she did. She knew she was good, that anybody could learn to hear the World's hearbeat, but only Worldsingers could control it with any real accuracy.

ight now, this knowledge wasn't much of a comfort. But the sound of her own voice mingled and embraced the sounds of the building and water all around, before wrapping around her like a blanket... Well, if a blanket could repel or absorb any manner of small or medium projectiles anyway. ‘You know what the Guardians used to say: never go into any battle or even a potential battle without a shield.’

The shield she used now was entirely different to the fire shield she’d used in the previous drome. It was less powerful than the fire vibrations, but far more adept. Where the sounds of fire were fractious and breakable, the sound of the water was gentler and more consistent. It flowed and shifted, like a centrifuge. The trade off for power was flexiblity, making this shield easier to hang onto than the fire had been.

She felt the splashing approach more than she heard it. Anybody else might have missed it, but anybody else wouldn’t have had the ability to read the minute vibrations created by something moving through water at a rapid pace, and in a way entirely unlike a fish. Fish were naturally quiet, partly because the water surrounding them muffled their vibrations, and partly because being from the ocean, they were so close to being a part of the world’s heart anyway. That was why water muffled the vibrations and made them harder to read.

Except... wait. Gallium frowned, focussing her attention on the space in front of the tower she still stood atop. She made an experimental clicking sound with her tongue and sent the vibrations out towards the shape, but by the time the clicking reached it, the shape had moved elsewhere. There was definitely something there, but it wasn’t travelling through the water.

...It was the water. Or part of it at least. The water, shaped into as new form.

‘Impressive. My opponent, maybe? Seems pretty scrawny.’

[Victin]

As his elemental got close to his enemy, Acheron could already see her atop a tower, but the visibility wasn't so good. He thought about going inside the building, but decided not to. Rather it stopped when he was at an angular position to his opponent. It reformed itself, standing 3 meters tall with his disporpotionally huge arms, with short and thick fingers. The orb in its torso still was hidden by his spell. The head of the puppet moved as if it was looking towards the girl, even though it didn't really affect Acheron's vision. The humanoid tadpole raised its right hand, and proceeded to... Wave at his enemy.

"She seems to be at some kind of church. I'm still not sure what her power is, but I think this will work." The elemental pointed at the building the woman was in, and made a "praying" sign with both its hands, even though they "fused" together, being made of water. Then it raised its right fist in the air, as if it was pretending to give slows and short uppercuts, while negatively moving one of its fingers, and shaking his head horizontally.

[Scarab]

Gallium had not known what to expect from her opponent, but the strange transparent creature standing in the water before her wasn’t it. ‘Good grief,’ she thought, slightly amused. ‘My opponent is a walking fish tank.’

She watched it for a few moments, still stood atop her tower. Granted, you had to leave allowances for cultural variations, but that looked like a ‘we come in peace’ type white flag gesture to her.

...Peace? Unlikely. Nobody came into the drones looking for peace... If it was peace he wanted, he wouldn’t be here (Gallium still wasn't sure how she'd ended up here herself).There was of course, the possibility that it was just some hapless citizen of this place, that happened to be left behind when the rest were cleared out, but that seemed equally unlikely.

‘Alright then... it wants to play nice. I suppose it’s only fair to give it the chance to do so.’

With a pause, and a flickering of energy, Gallium lowered her shield until it was just the barest slither of vibration against her skin. No way was she getting down from this tower, but she held up her hand in a gesture that she rather hoped was the same symbol the creature was making at her. ‘We come in peace, right?’

[Victin]

"What... The... Hell?" Acheron didn't quite understood what his oponent was doing, but he thought she was mimicking his puppet's actions. "I guess I didn't make myself clear enough, well... Let's try another plan." The elemental stopped moving for a second, and Acheron took a deep breath. "G-Greeting mi-mi-milady..." - Echoed a very deep voice, that wasn't the one from Acheron, but rather seemed to be the voice from the deepest abyss. It didn't quite seemed strong and imposing, but rather it speaked with hulmity and anxiety - "Nice-ce to meeeeeet you. I-I am... W-Well, I ha-have many-y names, Hy-Hydra, Scy-y-ylla, Cha-Cha-Chari-ri-ridbis, Po-Po-Po-Poseidon, Neptu-tune, and ma-any o-otters. I-I be-bee-beelieve that i-if we air su-supposed to-to-to fiiiight, we-we should do-doo eet een a place-ce knot sa-ssacre t-to Dog... Wool-d you m-mint i-if weeee fight some-mewheeere else-se?"

[Scarab]

Gallium blinked in surprise. Oh. He speaks Common tongue. Or... wait no, speaks was the wrong choice of word. It was more like the implication of words was being peppered into her mind. Telepathy? No. But something close to it, she supposed.

The songs inside of her ached to be sung but Gallium held firm. She would not make the first strike, not this time. Not in this... environment.

This was altogether weird, because this was NOT the way the fight was supposed to go. It hadn’t gone this way last time: last time she hadn’t been given time to think, much less talk to her opponent, and yet... in a way, she regretted that. I had to kill him without even knowing his name. What kind of victory is that?

‘A... hydrokinetic, correct?’ she said. She didn’t have to speak loudly: her power carried through the floor and the water and the air so he could hear her as clearly as if he were standing beside her. ‘You understand this place, don’t you? You know the water. You speak through it.’ She stepped closer to the edge. ‘I’m the same,’ she smiled. ‘My power, that is. We’re working from very similar score sheets, friend.’

Coming down from the roof obviously, would be a ridiculously stupid thing for her to do. It would put her at an extreme disadvantage. Gallium wasn’t stupid; she knew that to walk around with her feet touching the water when she was up against a HYDROKINETIC would be as good as walking into a lion’s den wearing beef scented perfume. But what was the alternative? Ten more hours of waiting?

But if he would have the advantage anywhere then why does he want to move? What’s he planning?

‘...And you want to fight elsewhere? Why? Where could be better for you in a place where you already hold the opening note?’ Into each word she pushed a smidgen of power. Not enough to shake anyone, but just enough to make the hair crawl around your neck; the suggestion of power. ‘It seems you have me at a disadvantage.’

[Lordxana0]

Drome reset. Battle Canceled. Both characters live.

[Qara-Xuan Zenith]

The Duck splashed around happily. He didn't know how he had gotten into this giant structure, but frankly, he didn't much care. All he knew was that it had been far too long since he had gotten to have a proper swim. Last time he'd tried to go swimming, he'd been interrupted right before jumping in, and taken for a series of adventures... then he'd had to fight some grasshopper, and then he was pretty sure he'd been dead for a while, which always puts a damper on aquatic pursuits.

Now, though, he was determined that nothing should interfere with his recreation. He swam out further, deciding to see what else was out there, and if there was anyone around to be friends with. Maybe he could even get a game of frisbee going.

[Sicon112]

The earth-shaking detonation kicked up waves over three stories high within the dome as a large, dilapidated clocktower pulsed with lightning bolts that had transcended black to become the sheer absence of light, then shattered outward with a blinding light. Drawing his sword back from his stab, Sicon tucked and rolled through the flying debris around him, flipping and landing in the foundation of the building he had just destroyed. Dropping to a crouch, he whipped his blade up to a ready position as more bursts of power flickered across the ground, causing the water attempting to collapse back on him to vanish with a hiss and a wall of steam.

Teleported. Damn it! I can't sense my target. His concept is totally gone! He straightened, using the wall of steam he had instinctively created to hide him from view. However, from outside, the steam and explosion would tell any observer exactly where he was, so before it evaporated, he sent a pulse of power through his feet, disintegrating the ground below him easily and dropping him into a circular tunnel carved by his power. collapsing the entrance behind him, he carved his way through the ground, thinking furiously. A moment before, he had been flying through the air, confident of his success, and all of a sudden his blade was crashing into not bone, but stone. It couldn't have been his enemy who had done this. Then what was going on?

It was at this moment that he realized all of a sudden that he was having no more issues breathing properly. He stopped, and sucked in a deep breath, but sure enough, not even a hint of pain remained. I've been restored to full health? But the question is...why? He intended to find out.

With another hiss, a circle on the floor of a building near the explosion site flashed white, then vanished along with the water covering it as Sicon leaped out in a flash of grey. Landing in the rafters, he walked calmly along a support beam and glanced out of a hole in the already partially broken roof, back towards the site of the detonation. Wherever that skeleton was, if he wanted to continue the fight he would have to go there, and Sicon would be ready and waiting.

He smirked.

[Qara-Xuan Zenith]

The Duck felt it before he heard it, a jet of warmth in the water surrounding him. He bounced happily in the warm "bath", thwacking his frisbee against the surface of the water for emphasis.

The resounding crack! that came back was far louder than the frisbee could possibly have made. And it kept... on... going...

The Duck looked around in time to find the source of the sound. Exploding clocktower. Yeah... that would do it.

About to resume his swim, the Duck suddenly had the horrible realization that clocktowers don't simply spontaneously combust: someone was probably down there. He gave a long-suffering sigh, knowing he would not be able to leave well enough alone.

Pushing aside the door to the palatial bathtub he'd been enjoying, he swam over in the direction of the explosions, quacking loudly as he went. "Are you okay over there? Are you alive? If so, are you up for a game of frisbee?"

[Sicon112]

Sicon sat silently on his perch, observing the outside world. Apparently, he was somewhere near the bottom of the ocean. He hadn't noticed his ears popping under the pressure differences, but that could have just been because stuff was exploding at the time. That had a tendency to be somewhat...distracting. The water had settled quickly, and he got a good look around at the surroundings. Wherever this was, it wasn't somewhere people actually used a lot. Everything was in ruins, seemingly abandoned for perhaps hundreds of years, left by its previous owners to fall into this dilapidated state. However, it wouldn't be around for much longer, it seemed, for the dome far above was slowly beginning to crack open. So far, all the leaks were very distant, but Sicon had no doubts that he was viewing the twilight of this world.

Well, he didn't particularly care too much, as long as he got out of here before that happened, and it seemed he had some time left to find that creature he had been chasing and finish it off. Strangely though, he hadn't seen any sign of it. Not even in his concept vision could he see the traces of the death field that surrounded the skeleton. In fact, the only thing moving around down there was a speck of white that looked like some kind of water-fowl. Perhaps they had had some kind o zoo down here and some of the animals survived.

Really though, the loud quacking he could here from the distant bird was rather annoying. It almost sounded like speech from this far away, but that was just absurd...

[Qara-Xuan Zenith]

As the Duck swam, he could hear a sound behind him which was louder than the swishing of his tail on the water should have been. He turned, to find that he was trailing a school of synchronized brightly-coloured fish, each one somehow toting an item of cutlery. Well, all right, so long as it was only that. The Duck turned back to trying to find whoever had been caught in that explosion, paying no attention to the fish.

The buildings around here were looking worse and worse-- it wasn't hard to imagine the fish looting the silverware from a place like this, which would explain why it didn't look like a complete set. "If you got hurt in that explosion, I can try to help," the Duck quacked, raising his voice in the hopes that someone trapped under a pile of rubble would still be able to hear him. "I mean, I'm not particularly good at first aid, well, I'm terrible at it, but hey, better than nothing, amiright? Also, if you're not hurt, we could... play frisbee?" He frowned. He should really stop pressing that point. He knew, deep down, that not everybody loved frisbee, hard though it was to admit.

[Sicon112]

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

The impatient sound of the toe of Sicon's boot contacting the rotting wooden beam below him continued on relentlessly. His eyebrow twitched. Alright, where the hell is that guy? He can't be around here, or I'd see it, and besides, that duck would be dead already! Is he hiding? There was a loud noise coming from far away. Is that annoying creature quacking again? Why won't it just shut up and let me thi-

"...we could... play frisbee?!"

Sicon froze. OK, OK, OK, hang on a second. That actually sounded like the duck was talk- NO. Just no. That's ridiculous. He looked out the crack in the roof, only to see the creature looking around curiously, as though searching for someone. OK, what the hell is this? What, was there some kind of mutation around here or something? You know what? I don't even care. I'm going down there. Really, the worst thing that could happen was that it was some kind of mutant, psychotic killer creature planted there to make the arena more interesting, and then Sicon could just blow it up, which sounded really cathartic. However, if it was willing to talk, maybe the thing could tell him where that skeleton was hiding so he could go kill it...

Yeah, this would end well. Planting his palm against the edge of the opening, Sicon released a pulse of energy, detonating the stone with a puff of smoke. Hopping through the hole and over the edge of the roof, the wielder of destruction landed with a splash in ankle deep water. "Oi, you! Duck!" He paused, looked down at himself incredulously, and then slammed his palm to his forehead, muttering in disbelief. "I can not believe I'm actually doing this."

[Qara-Xuan Zenith]

A rock exploded, and a guy in a dark cape stepped out. "Oi, you! Duck!"

The Duck grinned as widely as his bill would allow. "Hi." Wait did he just hit himself why did he just hit himself?

"So for someone who was stuck in all those explosions, I have to say, you're in pretty good shape," the Duck said cheerfully, relieved that he wouldn't have to exercise his lack-of-First-Aid-skills. "What do you say to a game of Frisbee?" He waggled his bright red frisbee encouragingly.

Oh, wait. The Duck smacked himself in the face with the frisbee. "I'm so sorry! In all my excitement over someone to play Frisbee with, I forgot to introduce myself! Let's try this again... I'm the Duck. You can call me Duck. What's your name? Nice to meet you!"

[Sicon112]

To be honest, Sicon had not expected the duck, who had now helpfully informed him that its name was Duck, to talk back. In fact, he had been hoping that it wouldn't. Sure, it would have looked really stupid to have talked to it in the first place then, but at least it would have meant this whole situation wasn't stupid. Or at least, not stupid in that way. It was plenty annoying on its own, thank you very much.

Guess I have to talk to it. Ugh. It had better know something. I just want to go and get this damn thing over with. Sighing heavily to himself once more, Sicon glared at the waterfowl. "No I am not interested in a game of Frisbee. I have better things to be doing, and introductions are pointless when I merely intend to ask you one question and then leave."

Wading out of the water and jumping up onto the top of a partially broken wall, he turned around to face the other again. "Now, I need to find someone. Obviously, there aren't a lot of people around, so it shouldn't be too hard even for a duck to tell me if there was a skeleton-like creature running around out here somewhere. Have you seen him?"

[Qara-Xuan Zenith]

"A skeleton?" the Duck quacked. "Sorry, I haven't seen any. But maybe the fish could build you one!" he suggested brightly, nodding at the cutlery the brightly-coloured fish had been carrying a moment before. When he glanced at the fish behind him, though, the cutlery had inexplicably all turned into small brass statues of musical instruments. Ah, well.

The Duck pushed off out of the water, flying over to perch beside the man companionably on the edge of the wall. "Frisbee's not your cup of tea, huh? Well, we can play other games. What's your favourite? We could do catch. Or Monkey-in-the-Middle. Or Scrabble. I'm up for anything, really. I just draw the line at Duck Duck Goose."