WAR GAMES

[shinsengumi]

10...

9...

This year, you will be participating in teams. Your teams, as sponsored, are as follows:

Aeva and Ystelle; Ashleigh and Larsen; Aubrey and Kieran; Brigitte and Ellias; Cabel and Joss; Cyrel and Hollingworth; D'Ivann and Helene; Drael and Kristopher; Griffith and Xian; Fila and Lisette; Indra and Zacharius; Ivy and Reece; Kol and Laurence; Leonel and Solus; Lucinde and Visvaldis; Malis and Vox; Oberin and Odette; Shryke and Siegfried; Talbot and Thane.

Should both members of a team survive, you will both be permitted to leave the arena alive. May the odds be ever in your favour...

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Comments

[heterodox]

[He's an old man with little enough chance of survival. Hollingworth knows himself to be the most intelligent individual in the field of play, but he also knows this to be a game of luck and brute strength. Even with the knowledge of survival - and he does have that knowledge effortlessly meticulously committed to memory - he lacks the practice and the force to put such skills to the test. His odds are poor and he's come to accept that.

But he has no intention of giving up, and that means using every advantage given to him. The first of which, it seems, is a tearful girl. Thankfully her distress is relatively quiet, though still far too loud for his liking, and Hollingworth wastes no time at all in grabbing the young lady around one frail wrist and pulling her sharply into the shade of the nearest tree. Poor cover indeed, but better than standing so plainly in the open. Oh, he is not designed for this sort of outdoorsmanship... nor for the comforting of frightened women, an entirely unexpected nuisance among all he has considered.]

Young miss, this will all be quite difficult enough without blind panic. If you hope to survive this experience, then for mercy's sake do calm yourself. I would have an ally out of you.

[voiceofdragons]

[Her screaming is nothing more than rasping air pitched high with fright, and she beats small fists against her attacker—she didn't want this, not with him! She'd hoped, oh, she'd hoped to be an ally with him, and here he...

His words trickle through her emotions, that much a long-time skill she has no means to deny. She goes very still and quiet quite suddenly, her gazes serious on him, if still wide-eyed.

He doesn't know. Of course—he wouldn't know. He doesn't know what they've taken from her, and she guesses from him, too. Whatever skill he might have, it's clearly not as dear to him as her power is to her. She draws in several deep breaths in an attempt to bring her shuddering panic under control.

How is it that they... She pulls back from him, just enough to raise her chin and indicate her throat. She taps it several times, opens her mouth to indicate that as well, and shakes her head: No voice. She hopes he can understand.]

[heterodox]

[Well, she's calming, at least. Hollingworth smiles encouragement at her serious expression, and privately takes measure. She's very slight, not giving any great impression of physical strength. Judging from that first reaction she's going to be emotional, perhaps prone to fits of dangerous panic. Far from ideal, this girl they've given him. But there must surely be some use he can pull from her - she is his first and at present only tool for survival, and that isn't something to be lightly discard.

The mimed instruction is simple and plain, and it takes him a matter of seconds to decipher what her indications surely mean.]

You can not speak? Is that it?

[How dreadfully inconvenient.]