105 - Final Night
As they walked towards the arena, Spike tilted his head at Soft, "Why do you look so happy? Not that I mind."
Soft smiled and put her hands behind her back as she walked, "Well, yesterday I got to see another halfer like me, even if he was clobbering you guys."
Rainbow snorted, "He got in a lucky shot! How did he even clobber me like that? He wasn't hitting that hard!"
Soft shook her head, "Not important, but the other part is that I feel closer to Lashtada."
Spike blinked, "You got closer to Lashtada while watching us fight?"
Soft Mane shrugged softly, "Think of it more like the worry and love I have for both of you." She pulled Spike closer as they walked, squeezing him. She put out another hand for Rainbow, who wasn't as fast to join the group hug, but eventually came over.
Rainbow laughed nervously, "I don't do herds."
Soft huffed, "Not that kind of love." She released both of them to walk on their own as she resumed her approach of the arena, "You're a friend, Rainbow. I only need Spike for that kind of thing. So be sure to return him in one piece."
Rainbow rolled her eyes, "Yes ma'am."
They arrived shortly at the arena. The ogre wasn't there, instead there were two earth-bound ponies at either side of the stairs. They nodded at the group as they arrived, then waved them down the stairs. They proceeded without much more than a 'hey' and were soon emerging into the noise of the crowd.
The elf that had signed them up originally approached, "Tonight is a very special night. One of you, either your team or the challenger is going to take home the big pot. Are you excited?"
Rainbow thrust a hoof in the air, "Buck yeah!"
The elf nodded, "Good. The crowd is going to go crazy. The bets will be out of control, and that's good." He waved the group to a quieter corner, "Because the winnings partially depends on those bets."
Spike tilted his head, "I thought it was six-and-a-half thousand either way?"
The elf shrugs, "It will be that, at least. But if the crowd's big enough, and generous enough, it could go up. You've done a reasonable job not having short, boring, matches. That fella you dealt with yesterday loved knocking the lights right out of people, made the fights over too fast. That's why we didn't have a knockout provision when you were fighting him. Your challenger for today is the dwarf, Ironshield Backbreaker. He's wild and vicious. Against any but the hardest opponent, he just wades in with his axe flailing."
Rainbow nodded her head, "Let me guess. You're making sure we don't fall over the moment he starts going nuts?"
The elf pointed his quill at Rainbow, "Exactly so. You're the crowd favorite, but bets are stacked against you being able to weather the storm." He produced two small vials discretely from under his cloak, "Which is why we're offering these."
Spike blinked and leaned in to peer at the dark brown vials, "What're those?"
"A little... assurance." He unfastened them from his belt, "Drink, quickly."
Down the hatch they went as Soft Mane asked, "Isn't that, you know, cheating?"
The elf shrugged, "No rule saying you can't drink potions before a match. Good luck out there." He left them then, fading into the crowd.
Rainbow snorted, "Hope whatever that was doesn't make this fight too easy." They approached the ring, watching the lesser battles until they were called on. Rainbow and Spike entered the ring to loud cheers and riotous stomping from the pony population.
The announcer looked around, "Tonight... will be a night they write stories about." He waved a hoof towards Spike and Rainbow, "On this side, representing Everglow itself, the enchanting fighter all the stallions pine for and her exotic dragon guardian, together, back-to-back. Others have tried to stop them, but none have succeeded. Claw and hoof, brought together in a deadly one-two punch!" The stomping grew louder and the announcer gave a moment for build up before he waved his hoof towards the lone dwarf, who was sharpening his axe pointedly. "In the other corner, representing the deep underhalls, a master of the forge, be it pounding metal, or pounding flesh with metal. He is everything terrible there is to know about dwarves. He lurks in the dark places of your nightmares and he's ready to put a stop to the dynamic duo! Which will take home the prize? Which will prove they are the best the city has to offer?" He backed away, "Let's find out!"
The dwarf hefted his great axe and pointed it at Rainbow Dash, "I was listening the other night. Short, you said, midget, you said. I'm about to teach you why none of those things mean dwarf!" He rose the axe high as fury flowed through his veins and he threw himself forward. Every step sounded like an incoming stampede.
Spike glanced up at Rainbow, "You made a friend." Spike flew forward at an angle, letting the dwarf rush past him before unleashing lightning directly on the dwarf, who only charged right through it, not even singed.
Rainbow flew a few feet off the ground, hooved raised in battle-ready position. "You don't scare... me." Her hesitation grew as the incensed dwarf came rushing at her, ignoring Spike's breath as anything more than a spring breeze. That monster axe came with a deadly speed, and Rainbow punched it. Her hoof knocked the side of the axe, driving it off course with a bright spray of sparks. She lashed out a hindleg, kicking the dwarf in the nose, but it scarcely seemed to register with the maddened creature.
The dwarf reached up and grabbed the kicking leg and yanked downwards, driving Rainbow into the turf painfully. He raised the axe to chop into the fallen pegasus when Spike arrived, landing on his back with a feral hiss. Spike bit into the closest part of him he could reach, teeth denting his helmet as his claws dug into shoulders.
The dwarf wasn't impressed. He threw himself backwards, crushing Spike between himself and the ground. "Everything's an anvil to a dwarf," he said, bringing down the axe on Spike instead when he fell off, "And everything can be forged!" Spike roared in pain as the axe dug with an agony he was unaccustomed to. "Oh, like that do ya?"
Rainbow sprung up to her hooves to catch the back end of the axe's handle across her face, driving her back painfully. She dove in, sweeping with her legs and knocking the dwarf to the ground with the power of a falling sack of bricks. A forehoof lashed out, bashing the axe free of the dwarf's hand just in time for a leg to kick out, knocking the axe across the arena. "Not so tough without that, are ya?" An enthusiastic cheer rose up from a familiar voice. The satyr from the evening before was rooting on Rainbow and Spike in his indecipherable way.
Spike rolled over onto his belly and was quickly in the air. He flinched with each movement, "He did something, gah, it hurts!"
"Spike!" came the shout of Soft Mane from the sidelines, looking worried.
The dwarf laughed as he flexed his mighty hands. Claws sprung from his gauntlets. "Yer not the first to think me helpless without the axe." He grabbed at Rainbow, hauling her down with him to wrestle. His hands found her wings and began pulling, "Now we'll see how a pegasus is like a butterfly. Good for wing-plucking!"
Rainbow thrashed wildly as pain exploded through her precious wings. She swung her hooves into the face of the dwarf, trying to make him let go, but he just kept pulling and pulling. "Let... go... Not cool!"
The crowd was going berserk with excitement. This was the brutality they paid to see, and they were drinking it up.
Spike rushed for the downed couple and sank his teeth into an arm while driving his horns into the face of the senseless dwarf. His claws pulled hard, trying to separate one of those meaty hands from Rainbow. There was an awful tearing. The dwarf fell away from Rainbow suddenly, clutching a bloody trophy for the effort. Dash's screams echoed through the arena.
Spike's eyes narrowed as he shoved the Dwarf to the ground with newfound strength. He tore, bit, and gored at the strangely unresponsive form, tearing him apart until something bumped into his face. It was Rainbow's severed wing. He jerked back with surprise and revulsion, falling to the ground himself as he scrambled away from the thing. The dwarf wasn't moving.
The announcer stepped forward cautiously, approaching the dwarf. He nudged his body with a hoof lightly. "We have a winner! It's not every night that we see the raw fury of battle put on display for us. One warrior lies dead, another brutally crippled! Let's hear it for the survivors!"
The ground-pounding resumed in earnest, mixed with applause and excited whooping, but Spike heard none of that. He moved over to Dash and cradled her, "Dash, are you OK?"
Dash shook her head quickly, "OK! My wing! My... wing!" Her face was a mess of tears and pain, "Put it back! Get Soft, make her put it back! Spike!"
Soft was allowed to enter the ring and hurriedly approached. Her warm pink energy eased the pain quickly, but the wing was still halfway across the ring from Rainbow, dead and fallen.
Rainbow pawed at Soft with her hooves, "This isn't funny! Heal my wing! Buck the rest, just put my wing back on!"
Soft shook her head, "I... don't know how to do that..."
Rainbow rolled over onto her hooves and stood up, a manic gleam in her eyes, "Then we gotta find someone who can! I'm going!" Spike tackled her to the ground before she made it very far.
"Hold on. We should take our winnings."
"The buck does that matter?!" shrieked Rainbow, "My wing is on the floor! What am I without my wings?" She sank beneath Spike, sobbing into the dirt, "What am I?"
Soft glanced nervously at the two, then moved off to fetch their winnings for them. She returned with a bag laden with platinum coins. She opened Spike's backpack while he tried to console Rainbow and she dropped it in. "We should go. Rainbow needs to be somewhere other than a dirty arena floor."
Spike helped the inconsolable Rainbow to her hooves, and they began ascending the stairs away from the arena and its noise.
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This sentence reads awkwardly, between the past-tense "was" and the present-tense "feel." I'd change the "was" to an "is" (or even an "is that").
"Six-and-a-half" thousand.
From "the" pony population.
"Back-to-back" there.
Ironically enough, "build up" does not have a hyphen here. When it's used as a verb, it's two words.
Bit of a thing here. Technically, "great axe" is two words, as you used it there. However, in terms of the Pathfinder weapon, they mushed them into a compound word ("greataxe"); that's how it appears in the PRD. So I suppose there's some latitude either way.
"Wing-plucking" there, though I doubt Rainbow cares very much about the grammar of what she's going through.
You're using the past-tense for Spike's actions, so it should be that he "gored" at the dwarf.
"Halfway" is one word, here.
5708459 All fixed, unlike poor Dashie's wing. That chapter went into a sudden spiral. I wasn't exactly planning that, but it felt right at the time of typing.
Seriously. Like half your opponents came prepared for lightning damage. Preparation is fine.
And... oh jeez. And this wasn't... this wasn't some heroic accident. This was "you decided to enter dangerous fights for money."
Well... that's gonna suck owning up to that.
Oh, and the whole lost a wing thing, but it's Everglow. She'll be fine someday.
OK LET ME SAVOR THIS FOR A MINUET.............................................................................................................................................
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
I said the first time i said it every chapter since 2.bp.blogspot.com/-9_IC3Luso8E/UAScjbQJA_I/AAAAAAAABGQ/aCiZ21nYVSw/s1600/NoSplit.jpg
so now I present to you the new and improved rainbow dashfc01.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/261/5/8/rainbow_chicken_by_bluemoongem-d2yz58x.jpg
oh and you know twilights going to be piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssssssssssssssssssed
derpicdn.net/img/2013/7/7/366936/full.png
5708474 You'd be a fool to fight Spike without electrical protection after the first night. Their opponents were hardly fools.
5708477 The champion has spoken.
5708486
No, Spike and RD were fools though. Until the last night they didn't know anything about their opponents before the match, while their opponents did information gathering and stuff.
... PC's. You can't see it, but I'm shaking my head.
Well, in Everglow, a sufficiently high-level Cleric or Oracle should be able to make Rainbow's wing grow back with Regenerate. Unfortuntely, we're talking pretty high-level; 13th level, for a cleric.
...by my calculations, their winnings should more than pay for the cost of the spell (regeneration being far cheaper than resurrection), but until they find somepony who can cast it, Rainbow's not going to be happy. Those clerics who resurrected Twilight should be able to help, though. (And when Twilight finds out what they've been doing, she won't be happy...)
5708526 It's pretty classic when you get down to it. PCs often skip that vital part.
5708534 What do you mean? Twilight will be completely understanding! Right?.. Twilight, stop looking at me like that.
In all honesty, this is where the availability and economics of a world like Everglow (or, to be more fair, any world based on "by the book" Pathfinder rules) tend to get in the way of the narrative.
Seeing how Rainbow Dash reacts to being crippled could give us some great insight into her character; seeing how she goes through the various stages of grief would be fascinating. Instead, it's going to be something she has to deal with for maybe a day, at most. After all, they're already hanging out at a church that has high-level clerics, and they've already secured the funds necessary to buy a casting of regenerate. The drama is averted before it can really get good.
5708551 I have plans.
Dark plans.
5708562 I'd say something to the effect of "now I'm interested," but that's been true for quite some time now.
See, Rainbow? This is what happens when you piss off the little people. They try to rip a pot of gold right out of your end.
5708562
Does it involve some sort of flesh Graft and tentacle wings?
What?
5708562
Is it along the lines of: Now that we know it can be fixed, you have to live without your wing for the next week, because hopefully you'll learn your lesson about not going and joining dangerous underground fights without telling me.
Or, even better, the taxes on the winnings bring their total to just below the amount required for Regenerate...
Of course she's panicking. She has *four* feats to retrain if she can't fly anymore!
So what combat maneuver *do* you use to rip someone's wing off? Sunder? Steal? Disarm?
5708816 It's in the called shot rules for an arm (which it specifically notes would be used for a wing), under the listing for a "debilitating blow," with Dash failing her save by 5 or more.
Silly dwarf. Who forges with an axe?
Hmm... Well, assuming they can find a caster powerful enough, the going price for a regenerate would be, at minimum... 13 * 7 * 10 = 910 gp. Well, that's actually not too big a bite out the winnings. Of course, the catch is finding that powerful a caster and assuming they'll charge the MSRP. We know of one, but they are going to be in trouble if they go to the temple-library. To say nothing of the dwarf they probably killed. And I wouldn't put it past that elf to blackmail them with the potion; heck, we don't even know what it did.
And until then, Dash is going to be having an existential crisis. She has been rendered incapable of fulfilling her special talent. That's going to mess with her.
No matter how this gets resolved, it's going to suck for Rainbow Dash. Still, Twilight isn't cruel enough to make her pay the idiot tax.
5708280 Discord's only contribution to that situation was making Rarity want the boulder. Helping the ponies carry the heavy, useless rock would have defeated his purpose in making her want it.
That was the most blatant example, but throughout the show, unicorns and pegasi have been performing feats of raw strength that make earth pony strength look much less special. For example, RD defeated AJ at hoof-wrestling, carried four other ponies on two separate occasions and broke trees and doors with her face.
Derpy broke a column off a building by accident. Fluttershy kicked a bear hard enough to lift him off the ground. Twilight and Rarity carried the boulder. Twilight survived gratuitous physical trauma on multiple occasions, etc.
AJ and Big Mac are stupidly strong, but the other ponies are too, so it's hard to see a specifically racial bonus.
5708894 And the dwarf would have had to have done at least 50 points of damage with his bare hands. I guess he was accumulating it over multiple called shots, since it described him tugging on the wing repeatedly?
On this side, representing Everglow itself, the enchanting fighter all the stallions pine for...
In the other corner, representing the deep underhalls, a master of the forge, be it pounding metal, or pounding flesh with metal.
sounded
raised
just in time for a leg
Oooh...consequences. I think Rainbow would have rather died than have that happen. They'll have a hard time keeping it a secret, too. Everglow has the magic to fix that, but the rest of the party is going to find out first. Also, Spike killed someone for money, how will that make him feel? (how will that make Soft Mane feel?)
5709119 I think that's a bit of artistic license to say that he used his hands, since earlier in that same paragraph he revealed that he had clawed gauntlets. Admittedly, doing at least 50 points of damage with those seems implausible, but he's clearly some sort of min-maxer.
5709137
5709119
This is a story, and while David is using the lore and mechanics of Pathfinder/Ponyfinder to fill in the gaps in his narrative, he is under no obligation to follow the rules. If it is dramatic, in-character and consistent with his vision, it is totally legitimate.
5709007 Will it be up to Twilight?
5709129 Fixes applied, many thanks!
5709161 I think that you're taking our discussion a bit too seriously. No one is saying that it absolutely must follow the rules as written.
5709256
5709161
5709119 For giggles, I made a level 9 dwarf barbarian that could land 50 damage on a crit, without much luck(besides landing the crit). 1d4+17+2d6 damage normally. Powerful blow for +3. Powerful Blow on a crit, 2d4+40+2d6 damage. Rolling perfectly average on the dice will get you the 50 damage, and a disarmed pegasus.
As adventurers, problem solving is literally their job.
Regenerate: lvl 7 conjuration spell, 13th level cleric. No special spell components, no XP cost.
Transfer Regeneration: lvl 3 transmutation spell, 5th level cleric. Caster must already have a Regeneration ability. No XP cost.
Restore Extremity: lvl 5 psychometabolism power, 9th level Egoist. No XP cost.
This doesn't seem like it ought to be that much of a setback.
It'll be traumatizing, maybe. But not a long-term problem for a group of adventurers, especially with the severed wing on hand.
Still makes a good story though. One way or another, this is a learning experience for Dash.
5709256 I take everything too seriously.
Bravo! That dwarf had the best battle lines I ever read!