Fight:Cornelius vs Sein

Background

Cornelius was at a property in rural Kelay, having taken on a trifling job as bodyguard for a merchant. Unbeknownst to Cornelius, the 'merchant' was in fact a smuggler who had cheated some Jersher merchants out of a large profit.

A Jersher Sentinel approaches, intending to deliver some much-needed justice and send a clear message: Jershers do not tolerate treachery. Cornelius, standing by the main door, is a notable obstacle in the Jersher's way.

A Country Cottage located somewhere in Kelay

[You've entered the gate of a white picket fence which surrounds a thick blanket of deep green, bordered by a vibrant yellow bed of beautiful daylilies. Several colorful birds are flying about, and from time to time they join the chickens, squirrels and other tiny creatures that can be seen bathing in the shallow, water-filled basin atop a stone pedestal centered in the yard. Looking west, a scant path lined with rocks leads to the covered porch, where by the entrance, a large swing made of cherry sways gently in the breeze.]

Sein makes her reserved way past the gate of this idyllic little cottage surrounded by a white picket fence. She moves like a wraith, thin form undulating with each movement, shrouded from forehead to heels in a set of black robes covered by a threadbare travelling cloak. Bulging reptilian eyes set deeply into a face of thin features and oily black skin never move from the dandy as she decreases the distance between them with every carefully planted step of bare feet. From below her cloak's hood, the tip of a vibrant fuchsia arrow is barely visible, running down her forehead as a natural warning of her poisonous nature. Slowly she draws to a halt before the fop who keeps guard at the house's entrance, and after a brief moment of further sizing up Sein's thin lips part and a scratchy voice emanates from between them. "Your time has come, now breathe no more." cliché pre-battle ultimatums passed, the female bursts into swift motion; the slender and half-webbed fingers of her left hand dip quickly into the interior of her cloak, and with a quick outward sweep three straight metal darts with a little weight added to the back end are hurtling through the air in a horizontal line toward Cornelius' gut. Those neon green eyes dilate swiftly, searching for any hint of the man's reaction to her initial strike, namely which direction he might be tempted to duck or dive, and on the first hint of his future destination she would step swiftly in with her right foot. Then the right hand, similar in all ways to the opposite, is flung with a fluid snap in the direction of her enemy. From within her voluminous sleeve a wicked spike comes hurtling, connected to a thin chain with which she can manipulate the weapon further. Like hunting a rabbit, the three darts are meant to flush the man out, and then the real strike comes decisive and deadly, aimed for his left breast, or throat.

Cornelius was standing warily, scratching at his jawline with his dagger - a cruelly serrated affair. His cuirass and gorget both gleamed in the sunlight, emblazoned with a spread-winged raven. He was bored, having taken the bodyguard job on in the hopes of staving off ennui, but thus far he had been sorely disappointed. So it is that, when his peripheral vision registers the darts he spins into a lateral pirouette, dagger flicking one of the darts off course to minimise the time spent moving. Immediately, his consciousness draws back into that cold, dark, analytical place instilled during his training. His awareness of space becomes awash with lines, vectors, and complex geometric equations even as his body responds to to the immediate danger. As his dancing footwork carries him out of the way of the initial assault he draws his primary weapon - the Penzance Sabre, a family heirloom partially crafted with the teeth of a dragon which an ancient Penzance warrior had helped to slay. The weapon is still suffused with the magics designed to preserve it against damage: its leading edge, and several hand-spans along the back edge, are still as sharp as the day it was enchanted. The very act of drawing blade is a defence, as he cuts into the incoming spike, intending to divert it into the door-jamb of the house. He smiles, glad that his morning had become a little more interesting. He then lets his footwork take him gliding towards the strange, froggish figure, keeping a weather-eye out for any retraction of the chained weapon, knowing from his Maestro's lessons how such can be used to entangle and attack from unexpected angles. As he approaches, other interventions notwithstanding, he kicks a clod of dirt in the direction of his assailant's face, dagger and sabre ready. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance old bean. Cornelius Von Penzance at your service".

Sein maintains a firm grip over the chain of her favourite toy even as the ringing of metal clashing on metal and a brief eruption of sparks signals it's diversion directly into a thick wooden post which makes up the door frame. It sticks solidly with a twang, splintering the wood before the Jersher yanks it firmly out of it's temporary resting place. The fop moves in swiftly quickly, and Sein responds in kind, twisting her entire body to the right and tugging on the chain in such a way to make it's tip snap toward the lower back of Cornelius. And as she pivots, Sein drops her wait and extends into a violent leg sweep, turning a full rotation to strike at the man's shin's or ankles with her right heel. Yet whether either move proved effective or not, the Jersher's main concern at this moment was not attack, but retreat, and immediately following her leg sweep the woman pistons her weight bearing leg against the ground to propel her body into a backwards roll, hopefully returning this fight to a distance she was more comfortable with.

Cornelius is constantly, almost unconsciously, calculating and recalculating the possible vectors of attack with each step, each movement, each subtle change of terrain. Although the dirt was easily evaded by the Jersher, it did give him an extra moment to respond to her assault. Hundreds of brawls and judicial duels on his family's behalf had turned science into art and thus as the chain moves he bunches his leg muscles, springing in such a way as to flip his body from vertical to hand-stand as the assailant's chain and leg passes under him, allowing him to jam his dagger into the chain as he lands the handstand to push it down into the dirt for the second it takes to make a single cartwheel to end up standing on the chain. Then, with the deft sure-footedness of a mountain-goat or tightrope walker, he approaches the retreating Jersher along the chain to reach the Old Vailkrin Circle of Death where the dance can truly begin. Wasting no time, he steps off laterally to deliver a tight figure-8 sabre-cut with a moulinet from the wrist: targeting neck and shoulder then chain-wielding hand should it still grasp the weapon, his own dagger held back in guard, ready for a change in dancing tempo. "Chain, I see. Heavier than cord, but more robust, even if you must treat it for rust constantly. A nice weapon, dear sprout. Please, do show me more. You are really making this day worthwhile!"

Sein does not make a smooth transition, as she'd intended. Rather, the hop pins her primary weapon to the ground, and as she reaches the end of her rope in motion her right arm is viciously jerked to a halt, leaving the rest of her body to follow. And then the man is on top of her again, rushing along the trail of her chain like an acrobat. The Jersher barely regains her footing in a crouch as Cornelius attacks with great precision, and it is now that Sein's weapon proves its use for defence as well. Showing great strength for a woman of her size and figure, Sein pushes forward to meet the dandy's blade, right arm extending up in a diagonal fashion with the gained slack as her left hand wraps tightly around the chain a bit lower down, forming a straight line of metal which grabs the sabre and with a huff of physical exertion from the female it manages to hold out. Then the woman moves to counterattack, her motions flowing seamlessly with a practised grace. She gives the length of chain between her hands, the bit which is in the process of holding back her enemy's weapon, a small amount of slack before her right leg lifts up in the small space between them before pistoning toward Cornelius' gut, with the intention of knocking him back for long enough to untangle the now cumbersome chain from around her right arm.

Cornelius lets the lateral footwork of his previous assault carry him back just far enough to have the Jersher's foot crunch against his engraved titanium cuirass. He does not stop to check if she displays any pain, granting her the assumption of competence as he uses the momentum of that impact to once again send him into a graceful pirouette, noting as he does her efforts to untangle the weapon. It is then that Cornelius begins the dance in earnest. His small swift steps, graceful and gliding, are accompanied by a flurry of dagger and sabre strikes as he moves in and out, constantly following and circling his opponent. He carefully maintains close to medium distances as he uses sabre and dagger to divert incoming blows to pass by or glance down and off his cuirass, even as he sweeps in cuts of his own at wrists, arms, shoulders, and any leg which dares rise above waist-height, happy to cripple or incapacitate his opponent slowly from the very edge of danger so as better to enjoy and draw out the moment. His employer would not approve, but what of it? The pay was not enough to overwrite the pleasure of this. He continues to press his opponent with a myriad of cuts and deceptive footwork, his goal to render her arms a bloody mess of ravaged flesh and muscle. Still, he keeps an eye out for the kind of trickery his old Maestro used to pull at just these times. "How does the saying go? You have my heart in your chains, dear frog."

Sein is herself shunted back by the force of her straight kick, and as she reaches the end of her chain yet again she grows truly aggravated with the weapon which was not suited to combat with one so swift and practised as her opponent. With a quick spiral motion of her right arm, the chain is unwrapped and with a tug it is removed, left to lay staked into the earth as it was. Yet in her momentary distraction, Cornelius manages to close the gap and sneak several quick and painful slashes to her upper arms on either side and her hip on the right. Bleeding now from a series of rough tears in her flesh, the Sentinel fights for only a moment to master her pain, and then falls into the pattern of his opponent's movements, ducking one slash, sidestepping another, and then finally deflecting the third with a powerful swipe of the thick leather vambrace strapped to her right forearm beneath her robes. The glint of a smile shows at the edges of her mouth, the bright pink of healthy gums contrasting disgustingly with the oily black texture of her amphibian skin. As the dandy moves in once more with a quick horizontal slash, Sein leans back like a contortionist, allowing the razor edge of Cornelius' sabre to travel mere inches above her belly. As the weapon passes above, Sein reaches yet again into the folds of her cloak and pulls forth a small glass bauble, dark black with a small cork stopper. With a rapid flick of the wrist the porcelain container is launched up into the Dandy's face, and should it shatter as it is designed to, and oxygen is allowed to mix with the liquid inside, a thick cloud of rapidly expanding miasma will spew into the air. The acrid material is designed to dismantle her opponent's impeccable reflexes; burning the throat and eyes, rupturing blood vessels in the lungs, and generally wreaking havoc within his body. Instantly she is ducking away, hoping to use the vapour cloud as cover while she moves at great speed in circles, searching for any new weakness to exploit.

A Chicken crosses the road.

Cornelius lets his smile grow wider with every bleeding cut received by his opponent, until he finds the Jersher to be just as gymnastically inclined as himself. He curses as he sees the bauble flying at him, but too late: it hits his gorget, and shatters. Only instinct has him hold his breath at the first tinkle of glass, but his eyes start to water. Damn, why had he never thought of adding mustard-weed to that mixture? These frogs knew a thing or two about poisons, it seemed. In the brief moment before his eyes start to water too badly to see, he notices the chicken crossing the path beside him. Without hesitation he hooks his boot up and into it, sending it fluttering at the Jersher - but that is not all. As it flails about midair in a not-particularly aerodynamic way Cornelius sweeps his sabre into it, sending cleaved chicken, feathers, and a spray of chicken blood into the path of the Jersher's face. He immediately lets his momentum carry him another step as he lowers his stance greatly while whipping the sabre through moulinet to sweep back at the Jersher's legs, assuming her to either be chicken-blind or ducking into his blade - any other possibility simply means she has retreated slightly, and he will need to follow, which he would do in his graceful, eccentric, non-linear fashion. Ah, La guerre, L'amour. Ever they play hard to get. He closes his eyes now, slows his heart rate, and the yard becomes a chessboard of lines and circles in his head: the slightest shifts in air pressure, the slightest sounds and smells cause him to constantly update his mental map even as he registers the Jersher's movements. His stance becomes wider, lower, as he readies himself for the Midnight Waltz.

Sein is pleased to hear the hiss of rapidly expanding gas as she swiftly ducks away from the position of their last stand-off. The poison in itself was not deadly, though it was certainly painful, and that was it's whole purpose, to distract and disorient, to help disable her opponent's uncanny command of their impromptu battlefield. And though Cornelius is immediately in pursuit despite the burning he was surely feeling in his eyes, Sein is left with the advantage. Now free of any physical restrictions, the woman moves with uncanny grace, keeping herself continually hard to spot amidst the haze. Yet Cornelius was an industrious, scheming fop, and he seizes the chance to use his surroundings to his advantage. And as he does so Sein seizes her own chance to launch her most vicious and desperate action yet. As Cornelius swings in her direction, splitting the poor chicken in twain and sending bits of bloody foul in her direction, Sein slides to a halt, dropping all her weight onto her bending knees while reaching both hands down to pull mirror image daggers from opposing scabbards on either leg. The dandy's sabre cuts cleanly through the bird, and continues on it's downward trajectory, and as it does so the Frog woman's uniquely powerful legs expand with all they have. The Jersher woman rockets in a perfect arc toward Cornelius, and comes down from above, the soles of her bare feet aimed to make solid contact with his chest. Her body, should it make contact, would compress down, her weight being put fully on the dandy's frame, as the daggers in either hand are brought simultaneously down toward either side of Cornelius' neck, hoping to tear his throat and arteries all at once while using the man himself as a temporary perch.

Cornelius remembers this feeling well. Kuzial the elderboy of House Stavret had awakened this memory in him only recently when they had duelled in that globe of darkness specific to the drow, and later again in Vailkrin. He remembers also his Maestro with the bull-whip, and he in the blindfold, forced for hours to move blindly to avoid the painful, welt-and-blood-raising sting of that cruel implement. Pain, the great teacher, had done its work back then: fighting blind became second nature, beyond the enhanced night-vision and dark-fighting instincts gained by anyone who had grown up in the perpetual darkness of Vailkrin. So it is that, when his previous sabre-cut to the legs clears thin air despite the change in air-pressure assuring him of the Jersher's approach, he remembers the assault of the Fermin assassin Noose, that sable-furred rat with the dark-steel daggers. With a cuirass and gorget protecting most of his neck, his mental calculations reduce the possible vectors of attack down to a few. At least this time he doesn't have to worry about prehensile tails. Cornelius, using his low stance to advantage, thrusts his dagger directly into the one path a leaping opponent could take, prepared to accept cuts on his arm, even as he brings his sabre back into the Guard of the Long Tail. With the dagger thrust he has, by merit of reducing the Jersher's reach, cut off the lines of attack to his neck and face, and the moment he feels any impact his sabre will know where to find a target. He waits to find out if the Jersher has indeed chosen Noose's tactic, and if so, was he the subject of a suicide mission? Would the Jersher take a dagger in the vitals to complete her mission? "I don't know what it is with you assassins trying to use me as furniture, but I assure you: I make for a most uncomfortable seat"

Sein has no option but to see her strike through, not so fully committed that stopping entirely is soundly impossible. Cornelius' dagger, outstretched before him, catches the skin of her inner right leg and tears a deep gash up from her knee to inner thigh as inertia and gravity bring her crashing in from above. The pain she feels is immense, and a throaty sound of pure discomfort blasts past her lips, yet her bare feet do find their target on the dandy's shoulder/chest region before his outstretched dagger can continue in it's path and mutilate her in a most embarrassing fashion. Yet it is at this point tactics are switched, the moment the weight of her body smashes into his, he is reacting, even while most likely being pushed surely off balance, and realizing that to follow him down with daggers to throat would mean her assured destruction, the Jersher makes a tactical decision. Feet now firmly in place on Cornelius' upper torso, Sein pushes out with all her power yet again, and the power of a frog's legs should never be underestimated. Most likely the force of her weighted shunt would send the man hurtling back down into the soil, possibly knocking the wind from his lungs, yet the fop had proved capable thus far and choosing to hedge her bets rather than wait and see, Sein hurls the daggers in each hand with wicked precision toward Cornelius' face as she soars away, or rather where his face should end up if he falls. Yet even with serious effort made to dodge, with his hopefully compromised position, Cornelius should have severe difficulty avoiding the biting sting of those devilish little knives.

Cornelius grunts with the impact: Noose had not had this momentum. The only option here was submission to physics, with a mathematician's twist. It takes but an instant for him to reverse the position of his sabre, jamming it into the ground like a walking stick to provide him the second of leverage required to flick his leading leg up into a flip kick, using the Jersher-inflicted downwards momentum to complete the rotation. Halfway through this movement the daggers connect with his cuirass, clanging off and causing Cornelius to go slightly off-course with his kick. He lands with a hop and stands over where the daggers have landed, opening an eye now that the painful sensation has become bearable "Who sent you, old bean? If they have paid you poorly, might I suggest asking them for a lot more if you take up this assignment again. Also, I would like to know your name. You have shown some skill, and my employers might have use of you as well"

Sein lands rather harder than she was expecting and accounting for, due to the fact that as her weight returns to her legs in full, the deep gash in her thigh takes it's toll. Suddenly unable to support her, the limb buckles, and Sein's opposite knee smashes hard against the dirt, busting open her oily black skin on a small stone embedded in the soil. As Cornelius too collects himself, a deadly stare is levered heavily upon his face, memorizing every feature, attempting to unravel every emotion within his expression. "My weapons sing not for useless bits of gold, nor does my blood fall to earth for any but myself." with a heavy sigh the woman struggles to right herself, stretching delicately upward to match the fop's height and bring her eyes level with his own. "And my name? Sein. Naught but a simple daughter of my race."

Cornelius chuckles "I like you, Sein M'dear. You've brightened up an otherwise dull morning. Feel free to do so any day, wot". He opens the other eye, blinks away the residual watering, and kicks her daggers across to her with a booted foot "I'd see the healer in Sage Forest about those cuts on your arms, dear sprout. The cuts are clean, so they'll suture nicely."

Sein just glares in return, showing no respect for the one who'd just battled her to a standstill, and who possibly, given the desire, might have brought her down. The vibrant rings of emerald iris' expand and contract violently, pupils trained directly on the dandy, searching constantly for any sign of weakness which could be exploited, or the hint of a veiled attack hidden in this momentary hiatus from combat. Venomously the Jersher stoops to retrieve her daggers, and then half circles cautiously to retrieve her chain dart with a violent tug which frees it from the dirt. The whole while she limps, placing her weight resolutely upon her unmutilated leg, and despite the pain, despite her infirmity, there could be no doubt that she was still dangerous, poised and ready to strike should the situation require it. "We shall match strength again, you and I. And make no mistake, when I return, you shall see nothing but the glint of steel striking out from the dark." Sein begins slowly backing away as she re-wraps her chain weapon about her right arm, making ready to flee, yet something halts her, something gives her reason to pause. With hands now dripping blood from the gashes on her arms, the sleight female throws back the hood of her cloak to reveal a face which is unquestionably alien from the norm. Her pitch black skin glints in the light, and if one were to look close they would notice it's bumpy, abrasive texture, like that of a salamander. A bald head, kept continually shaved away, prominently features a vibrant fuchsia arrow which runs up her neck, over the top of her skull, and comes to a point on her forehead, a little above and directly in between unnaturally large, neon green eyes. "Remember my face... for even as my dagger slips between your ribs, you shall not see it again."

Cornelius arches an elegant brow "Well, cheerio then! Safe travels and all that. Oh - and don't forget to see that healer, wot." He watches in bemused fashion as she backs away, sabre resting against his shoulder, dagger held casually, yet offering no obvious openings. The bemused smile tugs at several scars on his right cheek - healed clawmarks and still-healing knife cuts.