The Games of Saberhaven
The Warlord vs. Laereth
Laereth the Aasimar is sweating. Stepping into the ring, he prepares to contact his foe with both halves of his mind. Before he can however, his opponent, The Warlord, fades from view leaving him without a direct target. Attempting to contact the invisible Warlord anyway, Laereth reaches out with both halves of his mind. Each half contacts the mind of his foe, but at a cost given the experience of the Warlord.
Laereth attempts to Id Insinuate the Warlord, and use Invincible Foes to make the Warlord believe that his first hit on Laereth will kill >him. The Id Insinuation pits the Warlord's Id vs his Superego and stops the Warlord in his tracks...somewhere, while the Invicible Foes fails to take hold in the Warlord's mind.
Laereth continues to move toward the far side of the arena, scanning the area for any sign of the Warlord. As he's moving, he fails to psionic blast the Warlord, but does succeed in setting up a mindlink in he immediately begins to goad the Warlord into revealing himself and attacking.
As Laereth is about a third of the way across the Arena, the crowd begins to boo the invisible Warlord. They're screaming for a fight that they are not getting. Still, there is no sign of the Warlord at all.
Even doing nothing but searching for the Warlord with one part of his brain, the Warlord's location eludes Laereth. The side taunting the Invincible Foe'd Warlord has yet to hear any response from the man. The crowd is calling for the Warlord's blood.
Wanting to conserve his little remianing mind power, Laereth decides to drop his mindlink and continue taunting verbally.
"Show yourself!" screams Laereth. "Surely you can defeat me!" But still, after another round of searching, there is no clue as to the whereabouts of the Warlord.
"He's got to be free of the Id Insinuation by now," thinks Laereth to himself as he prepares for physical combat by succesfully activating displacement. No changes are apparent in the arena, and no attack comes this round.
"Show yourself you bastard!!" screams Laereth, his frustration obvious to all. Still, nothing but the chanting of the crowd, "Laereth! Laereth! Laereth! ..." can be heard, and only an empty arena can be seen.
Laereth speaks loudly to the judges, "Can he delay combat this long? Isn't there a disqualification rule?"
The head judge laughs at the Aasimar. "He can wait as long as he wants to waste as much of your mental energy as he wants. Of course, we frown on long, drawn out combats, but for those of us aided with magical sight, this's quite comical!"
Unamused, Laereth scans the arena. A look of forced calm goes over his face as he seems to be concentrating very hard on his surroundings.
His concentration finally pays off as, even through the din of the crowd, he makes out the scuffle of boots right next to him. That warning sound allowed him to be aware of the Warlord as he comes into view, but it gave him no time to dodge the skilled attacks of the Warlord.
Both of the Warlord's longswords bite deep into Laereth as Laereth screams in pain and frustration. That anger spurs into a blur of retaliation that bounces off of the magical protections of the Warlord. The Warlord swings his right sword one last time. It slashes deep into Laereth's side, and Laereth slumps to the ground unconcious and bleeding.
The crowd boos at the Warlord and begins pelting the protective force wall with food and drink.
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