The Arena: Actions

Malificar adopts a defensive pose and tries to analyze the mans stance. while doing this he calls outyou have a strange fighting style. what is it, and may i have the honor of your name?

Why, I win, that's enough reason for me to fight this way. As for my name, call me Nazriv. All the time he did not let down his guard while the two fighters carefully circled around each other.

Malificar smiles Nazriv eh? a good name. Sir Malificar starts to laugh it will be an honor to kill you nazriv!Malificar charges at nazriv while picking up some dirt. he throws the dirt on nazriv's face, and then fients to the right, then stabs straight foreward.

Nazriv was swift enough to evade the dust thrown at him. He whirled around, taking the feint to be an actual attack and was caught by Malificar's forward thrust. However Nazriv was faster than Malificar had even expected and before being hit by the sword one of his blades left a wound on Malificar's left arm. Then he went down, a large bleeding wound at his side.

I give up, don't kill me, he moaned.

Malificar steps far enough back from him to ask the crowd after kicking away his swords "WHAT DO YOU THINK? SHOULD HE BE ALLOWED TO LIVE?"

Kill him!, roared a fat man. I wagered fifty bloody denars at twenty to one, that he'd die! Kill him and we share it!
Other people cheered at this, some hooted, but no one else made a similar offer.

Nazriv was stricken with horror. No, please, don't! You cannot sell me for some lousy coins! Look, I ... I can help you get on around here... His voice was drowned out by the noises of the crowd, but his eyes said enough about his state of mind.

malificar looked ruefully at the man"It appears the crowd has spoken"Sir malificar walked over to Nazriv, and swung his sword down towards his throat

With a last effort Nazriv rolled to the side, evading Malificar's blow.

Please... he moaned before falling unconscious due to the blood loss.

Sir Malificar looked at the man and spat, before roaring to the crowd THIS MAN IS A COWARD. HE IS NOT WORTHY TO DIE UPON MY BLADE! YOU CAN HAVE HIM IF YOU LIKE! Sir Malificar then climbed up the walls and went to go receive payment.

The crowd cheered for Malificar as he climbed out of the pit while some men took care the two wounded opponents and others with shovels carried away the dead to make sure there was nothing for the guards to find on the next morning.

We have a winner!, roared Jheznar and again the crowd cheered.

As the cheers slowly ebbed away Jheznar gave Malificar his admittance fee back and said:

Well, yours is the loot. Let's see what we got there: A short spear, almost broken, a solid longsword, that huge steel mace, two short swords, oh, and one of your deceased opponents had this steel studded leather cuirass. A relatively fine piece of armour, if you ask me. He must have stolen it somewhere, poor fool. Didn't help him against that mace in the end...

Anyway, tell me what you want to keep and I'll pay you a fair price for the rest.

Sir Malificar nodded his thanks to the mani will take the cuirass.

Aye, I had guessed as much. Well, lemme see...

He again examined the rest of the loot, mumbling to himself.

almost splintered...five denari...plus twice ten...gives errm...well, this is still good, so 15 and that... 30, so that adds up to...

I can give you 70 denari for all this, he finally said. There you go.

He counted the coins into Malificar's purse.

The crowd had already dispersed when Malificar stepped out of the backyard, his purse comfortably heavy, the new armour donned and his left arm bandaged. He made his way to the tavern, where the innkeeper greeted him with a smile and showed him back to his room, where Malificar almost immediately sank to a deep and well earned sleep. When he awoke it was already bright day and his left arm still hurt a bit, but apparently the wound wasn't really deep. He gathered his things, thanked the innkeeper and stepped out onto the street.

Sir Malificar stretched and yawned contentedly as he left the tavern and thought to himself" i should find that man who didnt die last night. see if he might be of use to me"Sir Malificar then headed to the market district to try and find some rumours about the mans location

The idle chatter on the market square revealed few to no information. Nazriv obviously wasn't all too well known. Malificar had almost made up his mind to go back to the tavern and forget about the whole matter, when a slender man with a scar across his face approached him.

You're the one who won the pit fight last night, right? Nazriv sent me, he's still recovering. Follow me.

The scarface led Malificar away from the market square through some narrow alleyways. Finally, when turning around another corner, they faced not Nazriv but the fat man who had bet on Nazriv's death, accompanied by a thug. The scarface quickly disappeared into the labyrinth of alleyways and Malificar heard the noise of a sword being unsheathed in his back. Turning around shortly he saw another thug emerge from a house behind him.

Now, there we are, said the fat man with a malicious smile. I could have won 1000 denari last night! Do you have any idea how long it takes me to gather but 50 of them? Anyway, if you don't know now, you will never. Kill him!

The thugs charged at him, but Malificar had been expecting as much and was ready to parry one blow while evading the other one. He was not really used to fight in such narrow alleys, however, and the thugs pushed forward, forcing him to back away more and more, when finally his back met the solid stones of a wall, denying him any further retreat. He parried some more blows, but it was obvious he would not be able to do this much longer. Yet suddenly on of the thugs collapsed with a surprised cry, a slender man with double swords appearing behind him. Malificar used the confusion and quickly disposed of the other thug. When the fat man realised his men were dead, he tried to run away, but did not get far. Nazriv sprinted after him, sinking his blades into the mans back.

Now there you go, he said, you should have bet on your own death, as it seems.

Then he turned to Malificar, who now noticed Nazriv's heavy breathing and the bandages sticking out of his tunic.

Are you alright?

Malificar nodded.

Well, then let's seek out a more pleasant place to speak.

He started to walk away, but immediately stopped again, walked back to the fat man's corpse and collected his purse.

At least he is going to pay for our ales, he said grinning.

Malificar laughed out loud "I must say nazriv, it is not often i am aided by one i almost killed. very well, let us drink, and discuss... things." Malificar looked like he had something to say, but kept it in check while glancing around. he followed Nazriv to the closest tavern, checking behind him all the way.

Well, said Nazriv when they where finally sitting in a tavern each with a mug of ale, I assume you don't want to stay with the illegal pit fights for long? As promised, I can help you get access to arenas of some higher renown. Basically there are two options, as the real, official arenas in the rich parts of the city only take renowned gladiators. The slavers in the southern districts and the red brotherhood in the northern districts both have several semi-official arenas. I don't really know whether they are actually legal, but it seems the slavers and the reds both have their appropriate arrangements with the city watch. A distant cousin of mine works as arena master for the reds and there's a slaver who owes me a favour, so you can choose where you wanna go. The slavers have better connections to the patricians and the council, so winning their arenas would help making you a known gladiator, but they have stricter rules and you may not loot your fallen opponents. The reds in contrast are not that strongly tied to the rich and powerful of Singal, but they also allow almost everything in their arenas and the belongings of defeated opponents would be yours. Where should we go?

Malificar sat in thought for a few moments. better connections with no loot, or less connections with loot.. it did not take him long to decide"well nazriv,Malificar said with a grin"looks like its off to the red brotherhood for us!"

Nazriv's cousin turned out to be a retired military surgeon, who at most times wore a blood-stained apron and tended to the wounds of less successful gladiators. After Malificar had been introduced to him by Nazriv, the latter showed him an affordable tavern near the arena, where he could take up residence.

Now, I will need some days to recover from your blow, I think, Nazriv finally said, smirking, so I won't be fighting myself. I guess you can start with the fights tomorrow, after my cousin has ... errm ... semi-officially dealt with your registration at the arena. How will you proceed?

I feel this would be progressing too slowly if we played out each fight like the first one, so here's the procedure until we get to the final fights in the big arenas (if you survive ):

For each day you will tell me what precautions you take for the fights or in general, whether you spend money on anything that might help, how you intend to fight (defensively, offensively, etc.), what tricks and ruses you might be using. Depending on how it all proceeds, we may play through 5 to 7 days during which you (hopefully) make yourself a bit of a name as a gladiator. I'll give you reports after each day, including outcome of fights and other actions you might take, possible loot, injuries, items lost due to being defeated, etc.
To get started just tell me what you would do before the first fight, then I'll give you the information about your first opponent(s). Consider having half a day left before it gets dark. The fight will be at noon of the next day. Currently you have 95 denari left.