"Hey guys what'd I miss," Vect said suddenly as he snuck up next to Sara.
"Ah! Don't do that you jerk," Sara yelled and punched his arm, but her eyes were playful than she sounded.
"Ow, ok ok," Vect said as he sat down.
(Aren't you going to introduce me to your friends Vect?) Erress asked.
(In a moment. I'm still working on how exactly you tell people about a voice in your head without sounding insane.) Vect replied.
(Technically I'm not in your head. I'm in the bag on your belt.)
"Well? What'd I miss," Vect asked eagerly, ignoring Erress for the moment.
"Freed just finished his match and went full dragon on the paladin," Jack responded.
"I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"
"Freed transformed into this snake-dragon thing and clobbered his opponent," Beverly said.
"Where is he now?"
"Heading back to the dorm to get new clothes. He grew and ripped his old ones," Sara said, sounding far away in thought.
"How big did he get," Vect raised an eyebrow thinking of the somewhat small framed half-elf.
"About two feet I guess," Sara responded.
Lelu went wide eyed. "Sara I don't think that's what he meant."
Sara then realized what she said and covered her face with her hands in embarrassment. Vect could only stare at her in shock.
"I didn't know it possible for her to get any redder, but here we are," Lelu jibed.
"Hey! Here they come," Vect said suddenly to try to change the subject and pointed to Vesper's form slithering out into the arena. On the opposite end was Neisha.
Vesper had his wings folded over his shoulders like a cloak, the skin keeping the scale mail plates from clanking so much on each other much to his relief. Neisha had had to by a new bow after Jack broke the other one and borrowed a replacement scimitar for the one she'd given to him yesterday. Her 4 swords strapped to her wide hips gave easy access to then when she got into melee. She didn't have to worry much about restocking on arrows as Jack had broken her bow near the beginning of the last match. She eyed Vesper up and down. He was handsome, she could feel a little appeal towards him. 'I guess I could give fishy a try.'
Personal tastes aside, he was going to be an interesting opponent. Neisha had fought plenty of naga back home, but Vesper was something new. His clawed hands and wings might add a new layer to her fighting style, but she was used to multi limbed opponents and the wings didn't seem as articulate as actual arms would be. It was his size that interested her. Even for a naga Neisha was big, out sizing most by 5 feet at least. Vesper was even bigger, and possibly stronger too if the increased girth of his tail was any indication. Still, she had to win this for herself, to prove she didn't need to be kept locked in a tower and drew an arrow and notched it. Then the horn sounded and the match began.
Vesper just managed to get a shield spell up to block Neisha's onslaught of arrows. Just as one arrow was notched and fired, her other left arm was reaching into rhs quiver and retrieving another, creating a continuous stream of projectiles battering at his defenses. Vesper felt the shield start to give and began to send a bolt of magic at her to at least temporarily halt her assault. Before he could cast the spell, Vesper's shield was hit by a trio of explosions that sent him flying backwards.
'Firebomb arrows. I should have guessed a ranger would have some special arrows,' Vesper mentally berated himself and got up as quickly as he could, his long tail whipping around wildly.
"You weren't born like that where you," Neisha asked him as she began to draw a pair of arrows from her quiver.
After righting himself, Vesper looked at her bewildered. "How did you know?"
"A natural born naga wouldn't have been waving their tail like that when they were knocked over," she aimed the arrows at him.
Vesper cast haste on himself to increase his speed and was able to dodge the pair of firebomb arrows easily enough.
"Or wouldn't have to worry about this," she loosed another arrow that impacted the ground in front of Vesper, releasing a cloud of gas. Vesper covered his mouth and began flapping his wings, creating a guest that blew the cloud away and into Neisha.
"How do you like thaawha," Vesper's smile faded as he saw Neisha remain completely unaffected by the gas.
"Didn't know naga were immune to almost all poisons and toxins did you?"
"Well now I do," he responded indignantly. "And you have to run out of arrows eventually," he ducked down to avoid another projectile.
"Like that's gonna help you," she countered, and as if to prove her point, she used her 2 lower hands to cast a spell. The ground erupted as a pair of large hands made of sand burst out, their movement mimicking Neisha's lower hand's movements. As Neisha launched her last arrows the hands surged forward in an attempt to grab him. Vesper blasted the right one with a stream of fire, turning the sand into super heated glass. He narrowly avoided the fist of the other hand and sent a series of magic bolts at Neisha. She dodged 2 but a third hit her left shoulder, causing her to reel from the impact and unable to completely avoid the 4th bolt as she ducked down. The bolt hit the right side of her cobra hood and continued to go through it instead of pulling her head to one side like the one blast did to her shoulder.
The hood was yanked off her head, sending a cascade of flowing black hair down past her shoulders, a pair of pointed ear tips could be seen beneath the flowing locks. However, what caught everyone's attention was the vertical slit visible on Neisha's now exposed forehead. A collective gasp could be heard among the crowd as the slit opened up to reveal a purple colored eye.
"Can someone fill me in. Or am I just an idiot," Jack whispered to his friends as he saw the audience around him.
Most in the audience were looking at the shocked ones and were trying to figure out what was so surprising. The fight had stopped.
"Do you know anything about nagas," Vect asked Jack.
"No, not really. I missed that class."
Vect rolled his eyes, but went on to explain.
"In the southeastern deserts, known as the Al-Hibabba region where the naga are native to, they are born with a multitude of physical features. What features you are born with determines your social standing. The lowest have 2 arms, a snake head, and covered completely in scales, and goes up from there, with the more human like features being higher on the social ladder."
"Ok, I think I am following you."
"More arms," he indicated Neisha, "are even higher up, she would be close to noble class if that cobra hood was real. The hair and ears would elevate her further up. But in their culture, having been born with a third eye is the equivalent of a messenger of their god."
Jack's eyes widened and he looked down at Neisha. "So she's the top of the social ladder."
"Not quite, the grand sultan is the top man regardless of his physical features. Only one is above him unquestionably, named the Seich Il-Ho, or the god incarnate."
"So I guess those two up there are important," Jack pointed to the announcer's box where a pair of clearly distraught naga were arguing with the officials.
"Looks like Vesper got over the shock and is back at it," Lelu spoke up.
Vesper sent a pair of bolts at Neisha, one missing and the other hitting her right lower arm. She clearly wasn't expecting him to continue.
"Why are you continuing? You clearly know who I am by that look you had a few moments ago," she said.
Vesper began to laugh and then he sent a blast of freezing air at Neisha, who in turn threw up a wall of sand to block the attack.
"You knew what you were doing when you joined this tournament. This makes no difference to me, you're still Neisha and I still am going to beat you. Now stop looking at me like that and come on."
Neisha smiled and dropped her bow, drawing her scimitars and closing the distance between them. "As you wish."
Vesper dodged a pair of the scimitars as they sliced downward, slamming his hand into one and causing it to shatter.
Neisha made a horizontal attack that bounced off of Vesper's armour, and he repeated his previous action again and broke another of her weapons.
Neisha used her now 2 free hands to shoot a blast of magic at Vesper's chest and sent him sailing through the air. He landed with a loud thud and rolled over trying to catch his breath after the wind had been knocked out of him.
"You asked for it," Neisha gave a flourish with her 2 remaining swords.
Vesper slowly got up after he finally caught his breath. "Yeah, yeah I guess I did."
Neisha glanced up at the announcer's box to see the officials and 2 naga still arguing angrily.
Vesper waited for Neisha to signal she was ready and sent another blast of ice. Neisha again created a wall of sand to block, however when the wall was formed, Vesper switched quickly to fire and began to melt the sand and then switched back to ice, turning it to glass.
Neisha tried to formulate a plan to whatever Vesper was planning.
As the wall solidified Vesper gathered his mana and then sent his most powerful concussive blast at the wall, causing it to shatter and send huge shards and chunks of glass flying at Neisha. She brought her hands up to protect her face, but the projectiles caused several cuts and severe bruising on her. As she lowered her arms, she saw Vesper had gotten close to her and, using his magic to increase his strength, knocked her out cold with a swift punch ending the match.
"Sorry about that, I'll but you dinner later."
Up in the announcer's box, the pair of naga saw the fight was over.
"You still want me to cancel the fight," the goblin announcer taunted.
"If our priestess suffers any permanent harm, yours shall be far worse," one sneered as the 2 left.
"Keep an eye on these 2 in case they cause any trouble for our victor," the goblin said calmly as he scratched his chin thoughtfully when he was sure they'd left.
"Yes sir," a cloaked figure said.
"And pass on my compliments to Grandmaster Trace and your fellow classmates."
"The thieves school is appreciative of any praise given," and the figure faded into the shadows."