"Jibril ok i'll listen to what you say but you better not complain if it get used alright she chuckled a laugh oh yea i also forgot to mention miss rouge asked me a favor to help her get a brothel here in the scarlet district in a legal way if you want i could use the help
[Continues] Morcrux Campaign: Tale of Two Scales
- Thread starter Grimoire
- Start date
"What the hell?" Jimmy states, "Since when were you and the Madam so close!"
"Remember when i first came here?"
"Yeah?"
"I was a bouncer for the callgirls" Jibril laughs to herself, "Those were the days when i could drink every day and find a warm bed to sleep in"
"That bitch!" Jimmy shout, "I wanted a brothel!!"
"Well you can come help me out, once we figure out how to do that, that is"
"Fuck it, I'm telling them they can't keep me here" Jimmy says, pouting. "Madam Rouge ... damn bimbo ... my idea"
"Hey, if I'm keeping this, you know we'll be traveling a long time until we find something for you"
"I'm aware" Jimmy grumbled.
"Okay, I won't bring it up anymore" Jibril says pocketing her potion inside her bag, setting it aside.
"Did she say what she was going to do with the brothel?"
"No idea, she said I get a commission for helping with the deal. I planned to keep the coins for myself, afterall, I plan on staying here for a long time"
"Lucky, i bet its a lot for you to consider"
"Maybe" Jibril teased.
"I'll take that as a 'yes' then. If i had to guess, she'll send Guadalupe and Maria to help move things along"
"The card game players back in Heifong"
"That's them, always got those two doing the legwork" Jimmy groans, "Wouldn't i give to had sex with them one night before this happened."
"Not sure if she's your type, Jimbo" Jibril laughs.
"Yeah, too warm for my taste" Jimmy laughed.
"Hahaha! Yeah" Jibril laughs at the joke.
"Oh man, we shouldn't" Jimmy said.
"I know, that was sad" Jibril quips.
"But in seriousness of the situation, we should consider the deal the legal way" Jimmy steers back to the proposal at hand, "Alabaster would pay a lot to get a place here, having her here would bring a lot of business and coin right tot he city. Kane has to consider that a boon to his economy. Look at Heifong, since they moved there, it was making money hand over fist and that's before the Pirate Lords swooped in and muscled in on their rackets. If we play our cards right: you, me, Kor'da, Karlya, Red-Eye, and everyone else will be living like kings!"
"Always the optimist"
"I'm serious, can you think of a better way to make money than making a deal with the Alabasters to send us a kickback every month and splitting the take four way?"
"Four?"
"You and Kor'da, Karin and Karlya, Me then Red"
"What if we don't get that much?"
"Who cares! That's money we don't have to bust our asses for, if we just accept the deal and get paid upfront then we don't get the deal we want. Would you rather have a hundred gold coins upfront and nothing afterwards as a thank you? Or would you rather take ten gold coins every single month? If they mess up and not pay us then they have to pay us back some how, maybe some favors will do. They don't have the obligation to us if they don't pay up every month. That's basic racketeering school, Jib."
"I do like money"
"So do I, nagini, so do i" Jimmy snickered, "Ah, this is gonna be a fun town. Can't wait to get my hands on a bed of gold!
"Remember when i first came here?"
"Yeah?"
"I was a bouncer for the callgirls" Jibril laughs to herself, "Those were the days when i could drink every day and find a warm bed to sleep in"
"That bitch!" Jimmy shout, "I wanted a brothel!!"
"Well you can come help me out, once we figure out how to do that, that is"
"Fuck it, I'm telling them they can't keep me here" Jimmy says, pouting. "Madam Rouge ... damn bimbo ... my idea"
"Hey, if I'm keeping this, you know we'll be traveling a long time until we find something for you"
"I'm aware" Jimmy grumbled.
"Okay, I won't bring it up anymore" Jibril says pocketing her potion inside her bag, setting it aside.
"Did she say what she was going to do with the brothel?"
"No idea, she said I get a commission for helping with the deal. I planned to keep the coins for myself, afterall, I plan on staying here for a long time"
"Lucky, i bet its a lot for you to consider"
"Maybe" Jibril teased.
"I'll take that as a 'yes' then. If i had to guess, she'll send Guadalupe and Maria to help move things along"
"The card game players back in Heifong"
"That's them, always got those two doing the legwork" Jimmy groans, "Wouldn't i give to had sex with them one night before this happened."
"Not sure if she's your type, Jimbo" Jibril laughs.
"Yeah, too warm for my taste" Jimmy laughed.
"Hahaha! Yeah" Jibril laughs at the joke.
"Oh man, we shouldn't" Jimmy said.
"I know, that was sad" Jibril quips.
"But in seriousness of the situation, we should consider the deal the legal way" Jimmy steers back to the proposal at hand, "Alabaster would pay a lot to get a place here, having her here would bring a lot of business and coin right tot he city. Kane has to consider that a boon to his economy. Look at Heifong, since they moved there, it was making money hand over fist and that's before the Pirate Lords swooped in and muscled in on their rackets. If we play our cards right: you, me, Kor'da, Karlya, Red-Eye, and everyone else will be living like kings!"
"Always the optimist"
"I'm serious, can you think of a better way to make money than making a deal with the Alabasters to send us a kickback every month and splitting the take four way?"
"Four?"
"You and Kor'da, Karin and Karlya, Me then Red"
"What if we don't get that much?"
"Who cares! That's money we don't have to bust our asses for, if we just accept the deal and get paid upfront then we don't get the deal we want. Would you rather have a hundred gold coins upfront and nothing afterwards as a thank you? Or would you rather take ten gold coins every single month? If they mess up and not pay us then they have to pay us back some how, maybe some favors will do. They don't have the obligation to us if they don't pay up every month. That's basic racketeering school, Jib."
"I do like money"
"So do I, nagini, so do i" Jimmy snickered, "Ah, this is gonna be a fun town. Can't wait to get my hands on a bed of gold!
"Jibril alright will talk about this later now i got two big mission i need to finish and that's getting shambala and draco to get them to accept my apologize just hope is not to late to fix our trust again before i broke it ugh now just thinking about it this is going to hard to fix sigh wish me luck
"Well ... we did sorta fuck them over" Jimmy answered, "Everyone was pretty fucked up by that undead bitch Kane's got locked up in Blackgate"
"He's got her in the prison?"Jibril asked.
"Yeah, Maru or whatever her name is tried to kill some of the soldiers traveling back here with refugees just a few days ago. Even after Kane promised to let her go, she just attacked everyone and tried turning them into an Undead army"
"And?"
"And she fucked up" Jimmy answered, "Turns out she's so weak in our world, she can't pull off her Necromancy bullshit again or trap us in her illusion neither."
"The hell, how were you able to hear about all this from within this room?"
"Kane and I had a long talk while he was in here doing some work" Jimmy chuckled, "I can definitely see why Red-Eye looks up to the man. Guy's got a charm about him, I'll give him that. He's really smart, smarter than some mages i know. I asked him what would he do if he was running some place like Heifong"
"What did he say?"
"He said he would eliminate all the competition quickly and preemptively, it'd take him a few hours at most then corner the market on drugs and alcohol, figure out what's the best source of illegal stuff to move and has a higher payout on the market and lockdown the city." Jimmy mused, "The guy says it like it was no big deal to him! I told him he was crazy, but ... shows what i know, he told me he took over this city in just under a day. Building up the city to what it is now is what took him over a year to do."
"By the gods"
"Yeah, that's what i said" Jimmy answered, "So if the Alabasters think they can takeover this city and turn it into the next Heifong, they've got a really clever guy running the place that's even more crazier and ruthless than the Pirate Lords. I ain't worried they'd run this place into the ground, it's what Kane's willing to do if they decide to screw us over and mess things up for themselves. This guy single-handedly trained over 200 soldiers to fight to the death, has insane magical power as a god, and he's way too fucking smart that he's got people eating out of his hand and armed with a gun in the other. what does that tell you about the guy?"
"Means we better not start trouble or it will find us"
"Exactly" jimmy says getting onto his feet and leans his head up against the glass.
"I gotta go, Jimbo" Jibril says, "I'll see you when i see you, okay?"
"Good Luck, Jibril" Jimmy sighs, "You're gonna need it with those two"
"I'm not looking forward to it" she says walking out of the room.
Jibril exits the hospital ...now what?
"He's got her in the prison?"Jibril asked.
"Yeah, Maru or whatever her name is tried to kill some of the soldiers traveling back here with refugees just a few days ago. Even after Kane promised to let her go, she just attacked everyone and tried turning them into an Undead army"
"And?"
"And she fucked up" Jimmy answered, "Turns out she's so weak in our world, she can't pull off her Necromancy bullshit again or trap us in her illusion neither."
"The hell, how were you able to hear about all this from within this room?"
"Kane and I had a long talk while he was in here doing some work" Jimmy chuckled, "I can definitely see why Red-Eye looks up to the man. Guy's got a charm about him, I'll give him that. He's really smart, smarter than some mages i know. I asked him what would he do if he was running some place like Heifong"
"What did he say?"
"He said he would eliminate all the competition quickly and preemptively, it'd take him a few hours at most then corner the market on drugs and alcohol, figure out what's the best source of illegal stuff to move and has a higher payout on the market and lockdown the city." Jimmy mused, "The guy says it like it was no big deal to him! I told him he was crazy, but ... shows what i know, he told me he took over this city in just under a day. Building up the city to what it is now is what took him over a year to do."
"By the gods"
"Yeah, that's what i said" Jimmy answered, "So if the Alabasters think they can takeover this city and turn it into the next Heifong, they've got a really clever guy running the place that's even more crazier and ruthless than the Pirate Lords. I ain't worried they'd run this place into the ground, it's what Kane's willing to do if they decide to screw us over and mess things up for themselves. This guy single-handedly trained over 200 soldiers to fight to the death, has insane magical power as a god, and he's way too fucking smart that he's got people eating out of his hand and armed with a gun in the other. what does that tell you about the guy?"
"Means we better not start trouble or it will find us"
"Exactly" jimmy says getting onto his feet and leans his head up against the glass.
"I gotta go, Jimbo" Jibril says, "I'll see you when i see you, okay?"
"Good Luck, Jibril" Jimmy sighs, "You're gonna need it with those two"
"I'm not looking forward to it" she says walking out of the room.
Jibril exits the hospital ...now what?
Jibril flicks out her tongue and lets it hangout for a long period before stretching it up to her nose and pits then hisses. She flicks out her tongue a few bursts at a time trying to pick up a smell, turns out this is no easy task. This city is fuming so many smells and scents that it's hard to decide what to follow. Jibril thinks to herself how does she find Shimbala in a place like this? She recalls that the Dark Elves made their home in the Briar District which is due West of the Golden Laurel and through the checkpoint gates. She should try searching there. She walks through the merchant square and followed the paved road all the way westward until reaching the checkpoint gate and she enters through and now stands in the Briar District.
Briar District is a perfectly built and neatly organized section of the city with everything intentional built the same exact way as all the others. single story log cabins and wooden made homes with a cellar on the side and a backyard a few yards further from the back patios meant to be personal gardens and fields for tending small crops for personal consumption.
In truth, this district itself was the very first district to ever be made since Scarlet Rose was made into a country with the help of the Homunculi and the Dark Elves from the Simi, Quip-Quip, Vali and Uma clans with Vali being the biggest supporters of Kane's regime. It was their support that gained them much favor by Kane to build an entire district next to the Golden Laurel to move the clans out of the mountains and caves they've called home for decades. When Kane's hostile takeover arrived, the Dark Elves were given their own plots of land and the deeds to ownership over these lands to help them grow crops to feed themselves which worked to a degree. Now that the districts are up and running, more food is needed and people are pushing for more progress to be made on the Agriculture District to make greenhouses but delays in their construction has put people on edge more so than before. The Dark Elves are partly the reason for this rush to get this city back into fighting shape as they provide the labor and military support while the medium sized human population is invested heavily on the city itself and the industry. Citizens tend to clash and so people that aren't Dark Elves avoid Briar District for such resentment.
Jibril is amazed this place is so well built and how sturdy the homes were being huge on the outside that they could hold a family of four inside, they even had chimneys and smokestacks! They must be very warm in the winter times, which happens to be very close to that time of the year. She stops and smells the air remembering that oil soaked hair of Shimbala's and the gunpowder from her guns. Jibril was a bloodhound when it came to smelling her way around the district turning heads and farrowing brows. Flicking her tongue about and shortening her bursts until she's picked up a few scents. Jibril now has a few options to choose from now she need to figure out what else to focus onto to narrow down those searches. She did mention that she really liked Kane, even had sex with him, she's very familiar with his scent at this point so she focuses on the scent of Shimbala's feminine musk and Kane's body odor which was very faint at first. It appears Kane doesn't venture this far out into this district often enough to cover all the cabins ... but she does have a single lead now!
Jibril follows the road and hops over yards and gardens to get to the next streets over until she's further back into the district that she hit the walls before turning back and traces her steps back down the roads she's been through. Tasting, tasting, flicking and hissing, Jibril walks slowly and stops when she arrives at a cozy cabin twenty yards from the northwestern corner of the Briar District and there a large wooden fence circling around the property and tall enough to block any nosy types with a gate on the side of the main entrance to the front yard. Jibril walks up the steps to the front porch and stands in front of a oak wooden door and looks off to the side to see a bench with flowers on it like a bouquet from a suitor that likes someone resting there, abandoned. She looks back and sees the glass peeking hole.
Jibril might be standing outside of Shimbala's home, from the letter Jibril read, she obviously sounds very pissed at her. If Shimbala was just as pissed as she was when she killed Jibril point-blank in her nightmare when she confront Draco and knowing that Shimbala ordered the soldiers to open fire on them when they tried to escape. This wasn't something she wants to repeat the encounter, taking this very cautiously, learning from her mistakes. Jibril steps off to the side and hides from the peeking hole and knocks on the door. Someone answers: a feminine voice with a husky tone.
"Who is it?"
"It's me, Jibril"
There was a silence. Jibril laid her head up against the wall she hide behind and felt the vibrations inside. Jibril flicks her tongue suspiciously, she smells gun oil, it was very close. Jibril waits and then she hears a pistol clicking on the other side. Jibril's eyes widened when she notices that she found the right place!!
Briar District is a perfectly built and neatly organized section of the city with everything intentional built the same exact way as all the others. single story log cabins and wooden made homes with a cellar on the side and a backyard a few yards further from the back patios meant to be personal gardens and fields for tending small crops for personal consumption.
In truth, this district itself was the very first district to ever be made since Scarlet Rose was made into a country with the help of the Homunculi and the Dark Elves from the Simi, Quip-Quip, Vali and Uma clans with Vali being the biggest supporters of Kane's regime. It was their support that gained them much favor by Kane to build an entire district next to the Golden Laurel to move the clans out of the mountains and caves they've called home for decades. When Kane's hostile takeover arrived, the Dark Elves were given their own plots of land and the deeds to ownership over these lands to help them grow crops to feed themselves which worked to a degree. Now that the districts are up and running, more food is needed and people are pushing for more progress to be made on the Agriculture District to make greenhouses but delays in their construction has put people on edge more so than before. The Dark Elves are partly the reason for this rush to get this city back into fighting shape as they provide the labor and military support while the medium sized human population is invested heavily on the city itself and the industry. Citizens tend to clash and so people that aren't Dark Elves avoid Briar District for such resentment.
Jibril is amazed this place is so well built and how sturdy the homes were being huge on the outside that they could hold a family of four inside, they even had chimneys and smokestacks! They must be very warm in the winter times, which happens to be very close to that time of the year. She stops and smells the air remembering that oil soaked hair of Shimbala's and the gunpowder from her guns. Jibril was a bloodhound when it came to smelling her way around the district turning heads and farrowing brows. Flicking her tongue about and shortening her bursts until she's picked up a few scents. Jibril now has a few options to choose from now she need to figure out what else to focus onto to narrow down those searches. She did mention that she really liked Kane, even had sex with him, she's very familiar with his scent at this point so she focuses on the scent of Shimbala's feminine musk and Kane's body odor which was very faint at first. It appears Kane doesn't venture this far out into this district often enough to cover all the cabins ... but she does have a single lead now!
Jibril follows the road and hops over yards and gardens to get to the next streets over until she's further back into the district that she hit the walls before turning back and traces her steps back down the roads she's been through. Tasting, tasting, flicking and hissing, Jibril walks slowly and stops when she arrives at a cozy cabin twenty yards from the northwestern corner of the Briar District and there a large wooden fence circling around the property and tall enough to block any nosy types with a gate on the side of the main entrance to the front yard. Jibril walks up the steps to the front porch and stands in front of a oak wooden door and looks off to the side to see a bench with flowers on it like a bouquet from a suitor that likes someone resting there, abandoned. She looks back and sees the glass peeking hole.
Jibril might be standing outside of Shimbala's home, from the letter Jibril read, she obviously sounds very pissed at her. If Shimbala was just as pissed as she was when she killed Jibril point-blank in her nightmare when she confront Draco and knowing that Shimbala ordered the soldiers to open fire on them when they tried to escape. This wasn't something she wants to repeat the encounter, taking this very cautiously, learning from her mistakes. Jibril steps off to the side and hides from the peeking hole and knocks on the door. Someone answers: a feminine voice with a husky tone.
"Who is it?"
"It's me, Jibril"
There was a silence. Jibril laid her head up against the wall she hide behind and felt the vibrations inside. Jibril flicks her tongue suspiciously, she smells gun oil, it was very close. Jibril waits and then she hears a pistol clicking on the other side. Jibril's eyes widened when she notices that she found the right place!!
"Jibril we need to talk about what happen that day i want to tell you why i did that i don't want to have any bad blood between us so can you at least hear me out and if my word can't convince you i'll even let hit me in the face if it will make you feel better
"You have thirty seconds before i turn you into fertilizer for my petunias"
Shimbala cracks open the wooden door and sees Jibril outside, peeks and sees she on the side.
"If you got a gun on you, put it on the ground nice and slow"
"I don't hav-"
"You stole Private Pile's M1 Garand" Shimbala sneered, "I know it was you, bitch"
"Okay! Okay, but i'm telling you the truth" Jibril says raising her hands, "I don't have it on me. I do have it back in my room, i was gonna return it, i swear!"
"Fine, wait there"
Shimbala unlocks what sounds like ten latches and hooks buy the time Jibril wa standing before Shimbala wearing a leather skirt and a brown leather tunic with a white cotton v-neck shirt underneath it. Jibril sees the .44 Magnum resting in Shimbala's hand, she was packing some serious heat for this!
"Better start talking. Now!" She growls.
Shimbala cracks open the wooden door and sees Jibril outside, peeks and sees she on the side.
"If you got a gun on you, put it on the ground nice and slow"
"I don't hav-"
"You stole Private Pile's M1 Garand" Shimbala sneered, "I know it was you, bitch"
"Okay! Okay, but i'm telling you the truth" Jibril says raising her hands, "I don't have it on me. I do have it back in my room, i was gonna return it, i swear!"
"Fine, wait there"
Shimbala unlocks what sounds like ten latches and hooks buy the time Jibril wa standing before Shimbala wearing a leather skirt and a brown leather tunic with a white cotton v-neck shirt underneath it. Jibril sees the .44 Magnum resting in Shimbala's hand, she was packing some serious heat for this!
"Better start talking. Now!" She growls.
"Jibril just to let you know legally am not allowed to say some stuff but i'll tell you one thing that affected my decision making do you remember the relic we got from dunwitch well red-eyes try to activate it by giving it some magic which gave me this realistic dream which ended very very veeeeeery poorly for me where you and draco killed me and my friends for saying we didn't trust kane at the time i didn't know it was a dream i thought the relic had to do with time travel and i thought it reset the day to the beginning where i woke up i told the people closest to me what had happen they didn't believe in me at first but when red-eye's said he has full trust in me it convince the other's so after panicking a little and not knowing what to do we decided to steal the cart and head for shurifon which was the worst decision i have ever made which will stick with me for the rest of my life knowing that i got innocent people killed and getting my friend jimmy killed in the process as well all because of that stupid dream that demon but in my head that's what happen and even knowing thing's won't ever go back to the way it was she bow to shambala i really am sorry
After giving Shimbala the long winded explanation going Mach 3 speeds, the thoughts that were in her head during her panicked state of nervousness, Jibril drops down to her hands and knees and lower her head to the ground bowing before Shimbala searching for forgiveness. Shimbala just looked down at her, still glaring holes in the back of Jibril's head, she crouches down and taps Jibril's head with the cold steel of the magnum.
"You wouldn't be lying to me are you?" Shimbala says coldly.
"I'm telling you the truth, Shim" Jibril says keeping her head down on the ground. "I got screwed over by a demon just like the rest of my friends and almost got my family killed! I came here to ask for forgiveness and to say i'm very sorry for betraying the survey group."
"You got a lot of balls walking up to my home like this" Shimbala tells her, "You knew i was going to shoot you, so you stood behind the door ... smart, you're learning"
Shimbala holsters her magnum and tells Jibril to get up. Jibril lets out a sign of relief, she climbs to her feet and dusting off her knees of the dirt and dust covering them. But just as Jibril rose up and looked Shimbala in the face, Shimbala nods to her: "For future reference, don't you ever bow in front of someone in New Canaan. Have some respect for yourself"
"Okay ... so does this mean we're good?" Jibril asked, unsure what this is.
Shimbala sucker punches Jibril in her nose, Jibril just rearranged her nose from her fight with Karlya! Jibril shrieks as she falls to the ground bleeding from her nose and tears running down her face. Shimbala flicks and waves her hand after punching Jibril hard enough to hear the cartilage in Jibril's nose crack and bend.
"Now we're even" Shimbala states, she sees Jibril rolling around on the ground.
"Why the nose!" Jibril cries.
"Hurt doesn't it" Shimbala tells Jibril, "That's what you get for betraying my trust. I can forgive the guns, the bullets, those things are replaceable. Causing the accident was just that, an accident - can't blame ya for that. But what i can blame you for is murdering Franklin in cold blood to hijack his wagon and getting those refugees killed in the first place."
"You were the one that got them killed, I didn't kill them" Jibril screams.
"Yeah, you did" Shimbala deflected towards Jibril, "I don't regret making that order. Just more mouths to feed and wasting so much time caring for others that none were willing to pull their own weight. You just gave me a reason to get rid of them."
"You're just as evil as the demon" Jibril tell her, "They were innocent people"
"They were Shurifon's problem, humans and elves like that have no business in Canaan" Shimbala states coldly, "All of you were the empire's problem, they decided to purge the city and suddenly you people became our problem. Kane's mercy is wasted on empty palms and hungry bellies unfit to hold a shovel than a loaf of bread keeping the city open to slaves and refugees. If i had it my way, I'd throw you in the Pit and we'd duke it out with the other Canaanites."
Shimbala walks over Jibril and gestures out her hand to help her up. Jibril looked at the hand, holding her nose.
"But, you did save us from the horde." Shimbala answers with her tone turning soft and sentimental, "If it wasn't for you, every single one of us would be dead and my brothers and sisters would have been eaten alive. From the way i heard it, your friends were behind the horde's demise and kept the caravan safe ... safe enough anyways given everything. I'm giving you a second chance, don't make me regret it."
Jibril looks at the hand, is this worth it?
"You wouldn't be lying to me are you?" Shimbala says coldly.
"I'm telling you the truth, Shim" Jibril says keeping her head down on the ground. "I got screwed over by a demon just like the rest of my friends and almost got my family killed! I came here to ask for forgiveness and to say i'm very sorry for betraying the survey group."
"You got a lot of balls walking up to my home like this" Shimbala tells her, "You knew i was going to shoot you, so you stood behind the door ... smart, you're learning"
Shimbala holsters her magnum and tells Jibril to get up. Jibril lets out a sign of relief, she climbs to her feet and dusting off her knees of the dirt and dust covering them. But just as Jibril rose up and looked Shimbala in the face, Shimbala nods to her: "For future reference, don't you ever bow in front of someone in New Canaan. Have some respect for yourself"
"Okay ... so does this mean we're good?" Jibril asked, unsure what this is.
Shimbala sucker punches Jibril in her nose, Jibril just rearranged her nose from her fight with Karlya! Jibril shrieks as she falls to the ground bleeding from her nose and tears running down her face. Shimbala flicks and waves her hand after punching Jibril hard enough to hear the cartilage in Jibril's nose crack and bend.
"Now we're even" Shimbala states, she sees Jibril rolling around on the ground.
"Why the nose!" Jibril cries.
"Hurt doesn't it" Shimbala tells Jibril, "That's what you get for betraying my trust. I can forgive the guns, the bullets, those things are replaceable. Causing the accident was just that, an accident - can't blame ya for that. But what i can blame you for is murdering Franklin in cold blood to hijack his wagon and getting those refugees killed in the first place."
"You were the one that got them killed, I didn't kill them" Jibril screams.
"Yeah, you did" Shimbala deflected towards Jibril, "I don't regret making that order. Just more mouths to feed and wasting so much time caring for others that none were willing to pull their own weight. You just gave me a reason to get rid of them."
"You're just as evil as the demon" Jibril tell her, "They were innocent people"
"They were Shurifon's problem, humans and elves like that have no business in Canaan" Shimbala states coldly, "All of you were the empire's problem, they decided to purge the city and suddenly you people became our problem. Kane's mercy is wasted on empty palms and hungry bellies unfit to hold a shovel than a loaf of bread keeping the city open to slaves and refugees. If i had it my way, I'd throw you in the Pit and we'd duke it out with the other Canaanites."
Shimbala walks over Jibril and gestures out her hand to help her up. Jibril looked at the hand, holding her nose.
"But, you did save us from the horde." Shimbala answers with her tone turning soft and sentimental, "If it wasn't for you, every single one of us would be dead and my brothers and sisters would have been eaten alive. From the way i heard it, your friends were behind the horde's demise and kept the caravan safe ... safe enough anyways given everything. I'm giving you a second chance, don't make me regret it."
Jibril looks at the hand, is this worth it?
"Jibril grab's her hand and try pull herself up she tell's her duly noted also am glad you didn't kicked me in the stomach since am pregnant was worried my clutch would get hurt so thanks for that now i need to apologize to draco for what happen and i kinda wish he was hear with you so i don't have to repeat what i said
"Sure" Shimbala says, still miffed.
Jibril is helped to her feet, Shimbala grabs Jibril's face and presses her thumbs to her nose then *crack* that causes Jibril to recoil in agonizing pain. Jibril still tearing up touched her nose and realize it was reset once more. Shimbala reaches inside her cabin and pulls out a doily and gives it Jibril to use to soak up the blood running from her nostrils.
"Thanks for that" Jibril painfully moans, "Now i need to apologize to Draco for what happen. I kinda wish he was hear with you so i don't have to repeat what i said"
"Nah" Shinbala replied, "Draco's not that kind of guy to be hearing apologies. He forgives and expects people to be better but when they don't he either cut ties with you or he cuts you himself. He doesn't bother with hesitation when things need to be done, he had to file charges against you and the others because it needed to be done. He doesn't want to kill you so he's settling with cutting ties with you instead, everyone else thinks he's being too nice and thinks you guys deserving such a mercy is unbecoming of him. But that's just how the old man is, even if i don't agree."
"Then what should i do?"
"Draco isn't one on letting someone back into his good graces so easily. He's stubborn like that" Shimbala thinks, "If i had to make a wager, I'd bet a few silver on fighting him to gain his approval. It's how we Canaanites settle disputes, sure people get hurt but they aren't dead and wounds heal. If it worked for Kane and Draco, it should work for you and him as well."
Jibril is helped to her feet, Shimbala grabs Jibril's face and presses her thumbs to her nose then *crack* that causes Jibril to recoil in agonizing pain. Jibril still tearing up touched her nose and realize it was reset once more. Shimbala reaches inside her cabin and pulls out a doily and gives it Jibril to use to soak up the blood running from her nostrils.
"Thanks for that" Jibril painfully moans, "Now i need to apologize to Draco for what happen. I kinda wish he was hear with you so i don't have to repeat what i said"
"Nah" Shinbala replied, "Draco's not that kind of guy to be hearing apologies. He forgives and expects people to be better but when they don't he either cut ties with you or he cuts you himself. He doesn't bother with hesitation when things need to be done, he had to file charges against you and the others because it needed to be done. He doesn't want to kill you so he's settling with cutting ties with you instead, everyone else thinks he's being too nice and thinks you guys deserving such a mercy is unbecoming of him. But that's just how the old man is, even if i don't agree."
"Then what should i do?"
"Draco isn't one on letting someone back into his good graces so easily. He's stubborn like that" Shimbala thinks, "If i had to make a wager, I'd bet a few silver on fighting him to gain his approval. It's how we Canaanites settle disputes, sure people get hurt but they aren't dead and wounds heal. If it worked for Kane and Draco, it should work for you and him as well."
"Draco is at West Point, it's our military base outside the city. He'll be with the rest of our military returning our borrowed gear to the Quartermaster and taking stock of our new goods at the moment" Shimbala answered, "It's better if i go with you since it's authorized military personnel only. If you want to make a better impression on the other units, i suggest you return the rifle and ammo you stole. I'm sure Kane would be happy to know that you did, he makes them himself and each one is priceless"
"I guess that means returning to the hotel to get it then" Jibril answered, "Does that mean you're coming with me?"
"Got nothing lese better to do except going to the firing range to practice my marksmanship" Shimbala replied, "I could use the walk, sitting around waiting for the President to get his soldiers ready for war is getting to me."
"I guess we should get going then"
Jibril steps off the patio and Shimbala follows behind her. The two travel to the Green Dragon Hotel.
Enterring and going to Jibril's room, Shimbala waited outside while Jibril returns with the rifle slung over her shoulder and carries the ammo with her.
Shimbala eyes up Jibril with the rifle tucked onto her back and the backpack slung over the back on top of it.
"You'd make a good soldier" She comments, "You could use some body armor to cover up, maybe some better looking clothes than those rags you've got on."
"It's all that i have" Jibril answered.
"So much for the coin we gave you" Shimbala replied.
Shimbala escorts Jibril out of the hotel and back onto the streets, they travel to the edge of the Golden Laurel using the Brier District then using the road and returning to Shimbala's cabin. They get to the edge of the Brier District where there's a group of Militiamen standing guard and paroling the walls, when Shimbala approached, the Militiamen stood at attention and saluted her as they approached the gate. Jibril and Shimbala pass through the gates, Jibril amazed at the level of respect they showed her even outside of her uniform, seems she got sway and influence over the guards and soldiers that would equal to a Colonel or a Major in a modern military with how tightly wound up those militiamen act. Shimbala moves onto the road and Jibril looks out towards the west region to see a large concrete complex out in the distance with many barracks, watchtowers, sections of soldiers marching and training, the perimeter of the complex is barb wired and guarded in tight groupings of patrols with soldiers jogging around a pill shaped track surrounding the base itself then far north of the base is a dummy village for combat simulations. There's even a huge area between the fake village and military base that's comprised of many obstacle courses and training exercises that Shimbala calls: The Crucible that stands to test new recruits. Most of this region is thick with forests and grasslands, bushy undergrowth and such that not everything is within eye view but Shimbala's description of the region paints a picture for her.
"I guess that means returning to the hotel to get it then" Jibril answered, "Does that mean you're coming with me?"
"Got nothing lese better to do except going to the firing range to practice my marksmanship" Shimbala replied, "I could use the walk, sitting around waiting for the President to get his soldiers ready for war is getting to me."
"I guess we should get going then"
Jibril steps off the patio and Shimbala follows behind her. The two travel to the Green Dragon Hotel.
Enterring and going to Jibril's room, Shimbala waited outside while Jibril returns with the rifle slung over her shoulder and carries the ammo with her.
Shimbala eyes up Jibril with the rifle tucked onto her back and the backpack slung over the back on top of it.
"You'd make a good soldier" She comments, "You could use some body armor to cover up, maybe some better looking clothes than those rags you've got on."
"It's all that i have" Jibril answered.
"So much for the coin we gave you" Shimbala replied.
Shimbala escorts Jibril out of the hotel and back onto the streets, they travel to the edge of the Golden Laurel using the Brier District then using the road and returning to Shimbala's cabin. They get to the edge of the Brier District where there's a group of Militiamen standing guard and paroling the walls, when Shimbala approached, the Militiamen stood at attention and saluted her as they approached the gate. Jibril and Shimbala pass through the gates, Jibril amazed at the level of respect they showed her even outside of her uniform, seems she got sway and influence over the guards and soldiers that would equal to a Colonel or a Major in a modern military with how tightly wound up those militiamen act. Shimbala moves onto the road and Jibril looks out towards the west region to see a large concrete complex out in the distance with many barracks, watchtowers, sections of soldiers marching and training, the perimeter of the complex is barb wired and guarded in tight groupings of patrols with soldiers jogging around a pill shaped track surrounding the base itself then far north of the base is a dummy village for combat simulations. There's even a huge area between the fake village and military base that's comprised of many obstacle courses and training exercises that Shimbala calls: The Crucible that stands to test new recruits. Most of this region is thick with forests and grasslands, bushy undergrowth and such that not everything is within eye view but Shimbala's description of the region paints a picture for her.
"This is amazing" Jibril says at the top of the hill as the two overlook the entire plateau of western New Canaan.
"I know" Shimbala answers longingly, "It's what we're fighting to keep."
Shimbala takes the packed dirt road down several yards below the hill and they make for the miles long road, for five miles, Shimbala and Jibril keep to their silence while they pass by the forest and moving by several clusters of rock formations, piles and trenches. Trees still obscure their line of sight of the areas they travel on keeping an eye ahead and the sun setting on the sea just on the horizon the further they go. Jibril strikes up a conversation four miles into their hike towards West Point.
"Where do i put the gun and ammo away?" Jibril asked.
"Quartermaster, Building D3" Shimbala replied, "Just tell Quartermaster Oman that they belonged to Private Pile, he'll take care of the cleaning and maintenance, clear the serial numbers with our ledgers and lock it up in our arsenal."
Jibril flicks out her tongue trying to figureout where Draco might be, perhaps she can find him even from this far from the base. The longer she stretched out her tongue, the further away she can smell the scent of people, even then Jibril finds that her powerful sense of smell doesn't yield anything for her to latch onto. It's not easy figuring out what to smell on a dragonborn except the metallic scent of his scales and that's hard to describe when all you can smell is chemicals from the factories and the dizzy effects of gunpowder, sulfur, hot ash, smoking bodies and heavy wafts of blood soaking in the dirt somewhere around them. This land is polluted with death, Jibril thinks, what could have happened here that it would send shivers up and down her spine?
"I know" Shimbala answers longingly, "It's what we're fighting to keep."
Shimbala takes the packed dirt road down several yards below the hill and they make for the miles long road, for five miles, Shimbala and Jibril keep to their silence while they pass by the forest and moving by several clusters of rock formations, piles and trenches. Trees still obscure their line of sight of the areas they travel on keeping an eye ahead and the sun setting on the sea just on the horizon the further they go. Jibril strikes up a conversation four miles into their hike towards West Point.
"Where do i put the gun and ammo away?" Jibril asked.
"Quartermaster, Building D3" Shimbala replied, "Just tell Quartermaster Oman that they belonged to Private Pile, he'll take care of the cleaning and maintenance, clear the serial numbers with our ledgers and lock it up in our arsenal."
Jibril flicks out her tongue trying to figureout where Draco might be, perhaps she can find him even from this far from the base. The longer she stretched out her tongue, the further away she can smell the scent of people, even then Jibril finds that her powerful sense of smell doesn't yield anything for her to latch onto. It's not easy figuring out what to smell on a dragonborn except the metallic scent of his scales and that's hard to describe when all you can smell is chemicals from the factories and the dizzy effects of gunpowder, sulfur, hot ash, smoking bodies and heavy wafts of blood soaking in the dirt somewhere around them. This land is polluted with death, Jibril thinks, what could have happened here that it would send shivers up and down her spine?
"Jibril hey shambala just now when i try to look for draco i just have this cold shiver up my spine did something bad happen here that you can tell me about am starting to get very worried about it.Am not saying i don't trust you or anything it just a little that's freaking me out
Shimbala was silent when asked. It takes her awhile to answer, for long time. When Jibril dropped the subject, that's when Shimbala finally answers her question. When Jibril looks up, she see craters of scorched earth and blood trials everywhere. Shimbala stops at the largest group of these craters and turns back to Jibril.
"We were attacked from the inside out. Traitors. My clan were executed and made to walk the landmines we buried in the ground surrounding our base, small but if you step on one" She makes a loud explosive noise, "they didn't see it coming. We lost a lot of people a month ago, buried the heads of our fallen is tradition ... hard to bury something when there's nothing left of them. West Point was destroyed and rebuilt quickly after the fires burned it to the ground, most of it was salvaged but everything that mattered was turned to ashes and smoldering rock. My brothers and sisters, friends and family, they perished in the fire, killed by our own rival clan. I didn't get to say goodbye to my youngest brother when the Black Rider mercenaries took the base. Slit his throat and left him to bleed in the dirt, they laughed at him when he fought in vain to keep himself alive. they did the same to all the others, made the survivors play their sick little games and forcing them to walk an entire minefield only to blow themselves up to let the rest of the traitors storm our base. They disguised themselves in our uniforms, lured more of us into a trap and rearranged the landmines to get them all. More people dead.
But we don't have time to mourn them. There's too much at stake to let us dwell on the past, all we can do is get our revenge."
"We were attacked from the inside out. Traitors. My clan were executed and made to walk the landmines we buried in the ground surrounding our base, small but if you step on one" She makes a loud explosive noise, "they didn't see it coming. We lost a lot of people a month ago, buried the heads of our fallen is tradition ... hard to bury something when there's nothing left of them. West Point was destroyed and rebuilt quickly after the fires burned it to the ground, most of it was salvaged but everything that mattered was turned to ashes and smoldering rock. My brothers and sisters, friends and family, they perished in the fire, killed by our own rival clan. I didn't get to say goodbye to my youngest brother when the Black Rider mercenaries took the base. Slit his throat and left him to bleed in the dirt, they laughed at him when he fought in vain to keep himself alive. they did the same to all the others, made the survivors play their sick little games and forcing them to walk an entire minefield only to blow themselves up to let the rest of the traitors storm our base. They disguised themselves in our uniforms, lured more of us into a trap and rearranged the landmines to get them all. More people dead.
But we don't have time to mourn them. There's too much at stake to let us dwell on the past, all we can do is get our revenge."
"I'm sorry" Jibril answers, waiting a moment before realizing they're standing where she said there was landmines, "Please tell me we're not walking in this 'mine field' right now"
"We removed the mines, too damaging and costly to make" Shimbala answered, though she does get a chuckle at how nervous it makes Jibril.
"Now you're just making me even more nervous" Jibril states watching her step, "Making me wonder if coming to visit Draco is worth it if my life's in danger."
"Can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs" Shimbala jokes, "Besides, doesn't seem to stop you from getting into the thick of it. Just stick behind me and stay on the main road, we'll be fine."
"Whatever you say"
The two reach the north gate of the West Point, security checkpoint with rifles raised and olive colored uniforms were shown on all the people on the base. jibril raised her hands until Shimbala approached the gate and the rifles aim at Jibril were lowered as another person came forward and asked for Shimbala's personnel identity tags: Dog Tags. Shimbala handed the Military Police guarding the base and checked a ledger book inside the guard post. They write down something and returned Shimbala's dog tags to her and she drops them over her neck then proceeds into the base. Soldiers lowered their rifles and slung them over and resumes their patrols with all eyes watching Jibirl and Shimbala. North Gate behind them, steel wagons ferrying cargo move from building to building with sweaty grunts lining up and passing along crates and bags along the chain of grunts until inside using teamwork and team building exercises to get things done. Barrack fallout with new recruits jogging out in single file lines and the members of the Juggernauts and Jaegers instruct the new recruits in their formations and training them in personal fitness. Jibril looks around as the boulevard of buildings and soldiers swarming around, this is like one big village with so many people packed inside that its hard to believe everything fits here. She passes by the Firing Range where recruits use the M1 Garands to pop paper targets on steel plated posts, practicing their reloads, accuracy and adjusting their weapons with tools and such. Jibril passed a very large open dirt hole about twenty feet down and forty feet wide with rope nets dangling from the edges with pitons holding them on the edge of the concrete, inside the pit is a group of soldiers fighting with their shirts, boots and fighting bare knuckle with a crowd of soldiers cheering and roaring: this is The Pit. Shimbala walks on over to the Draco who stood under the shade of a tarp with desks topped with papers and guns, ammo, miscellaneous items such as water bottles, canteens, shirts and boots. Draco looks like he's enjoying the merrymaking of the soldiers as he tells the next pair of soldier to jump in and duke it out when Shimbala approaches. But Draco's friendly demeanor changes when Jibril comes out from behind Shimbala, his eyes narrow on her.
"What is she doing here?" Draco growled lowly.
"Here to talk" Shimbala replied with a smirk.
"I have nothing to say to you" Draco directed his ire to Jibril.
"We removed the mines, too damaging and costly to make" Shimbala answered, though she does get a chuckle at how nervous it makes Jibril.
"Now you're just making me even more nervous" Jibril states watching her step, "Making me wonder if coming to visit Draco is worth it if my life's in danger."
"Can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs" Shimbala jokes, "Besides, doesn't seem to stop you from getting into the thick of it. Just stick behind me and stay on the main road, we'll be fine."
"Whatever you say"
The two reach the north gate of the West Point, security checkpoint with rifles raised and olive colored uniforms were shown on all the people on the base. jibril raised her hands until Shimbala approached the gate and the rifles aim at Jibril were lowered as another person came forward and asked for Shimbala's personnel identity tags: Dog Tags. Shimbala handed the Military Police guarding the base and checked a ledger book inside the guard post. They write down something and returned Shimbala's dog tags to her and she drops them over her neck then proceeds into the base. Soldiers lowered their rifles and slung them over and resumes their patrols with all eyes watching Jibirl and Shimbala. North Gate behind them, steel wagons ferrying cargo move from building to building with sweaty grunts lining up and passing along crates and bags along the chain of grunts until inside using teamwork and team building exercises to get things done. Barrack fallout with new recruits jogging out in single file lines and the members of the Juggernauts and Jaegers instruct the new recruits in their formations and training them in personal fitness. Jibril looks around as the boulevard of buildings and soldiers swarming around, this is like one big village with so many people packed inside that its hard to believe everything fits here. She passes by the Firing Range where recruits use the M1 Garands to pop paper targets on steel plated posts, practicing their reloads, accuracy and adjusting their weapons with tools and such. Jibril passed a very large open dirt hole about twenty feet down and forty feet wide with rope nets dangling from the edges with pitons holding them on the edge of the concrete, inside the pit is a group of soldiers fighting with their shirts, boots and fighting bare knuckle with a crowd of soldiers cheering and roaring: this is The Pit. Shimbala walks on over to the Draco who stood under the shade of a tarp with desks topped with papers and guns, ammo, miscellaneous items such as water bottles, canteens, shirts and boots. Draco looks like he's enjoying the merrymaking of the soldiers as he tells the next pair of soldier to jump in and duke it out when Shimbala approaches. But Draco's friendly demeanor changes when Jibril comes out from behind Shimbala, his eyes narrow on her.
"What is she doing here?" Draco growled lowly.
"Here to talk" Shimbala replied with a smirk.
"I have nothing to say to you" Draco directed his ire to Jibril.
"No" Draco answers sharply.
"Come on, Draco, she's down with it" Shimbala prods him, "Think of the guys, seeing you two duking it out in the pit. Bet it'll raise morale"
"No" Draco says again with a little hint of disapproval.
"Why not?" Jibril asked.
"Because you're pregnant" Draco answered sharply, "So the answer is NO!"
"Well then I'm not leaving until we resolve this amicably" Jibril demands, crossing her arms.
"Why, because i won't fight a pregnant woman?" Draco snide, "We resolve this in court, that's the peaceful way. You're here to make a statement and right now i told you never to see me, i sent you a letter stating that as such."
"Yeah and I'm here to solve this my way" Jibril challenged, "Not yours"
"Draco, she's put in the effort to come this far knowing the punishment" Shimbala defends, "You can't think of any other way to settle this?"
"Tell that to the refugees" Draco snarls, he points to Jibril "I told you to stay in line, keep your nose clean and not rock the boat. You did all three despite my warnings to you and your husband. I risked my life and the lives of my soldiers to help your retrieve that fucking relic and you expect me to forgive you?"
"Hey, I-"
Draco roses up and storms Jibril, he pressed his snout into her face, heated breath breathing hard on her. Jibril's heart leaps into her throat when Draco stares her down with those big yellow slit eyes of his.
"Leave" He orders, fire growing in his throat as his temper raised.
"Come on, Draco, she's down with it" Shimbala prods him, "Think of the guys, seeing you two duking it out in the pit. Bet it'll raise morale"
"No" Draco says again with a little hint of disapproval.
"Why not?" Jibril asked.
"Because you're pregnant" Draco answered sharply, "So the answer is NO!"
"Well then I'm not leaving until we resolve this amicably" Jibril demands, crossing her arms.
"Why, because i won't fight a pregnant woman?" Draco snide, "We resolve this in court, that's the peaceful way. You're here to make a statement and right now i told you never to see me, i sent you a letter stating that as such."
"Yeah and I'm here to solve this my way" Jibril challenged, "Not yours"
"Draco, she's put in the effort to come this far knowing the punishment" Shimbala defends, "You can't think of any other way to settle this?"
"Tell that to the refugees" Draco snarls, he points to Jibril "I told you to stay in line, keep your nose clean and not rock the boat. You did all three despite my warnings to you and your husband. I risked my life and the lives of my soldiers to help your retrieve that fucking relic and you expect me to forgive you?"
"Hey, I-"
Draco roses up and storms Jibril, he pressed his snout into her face, heated breath breathing hard on her. Jibril's heart leaps into her throat when Draco stares her down with those big yellow slit eyes of his.
"Leave" He orders, fire growing in his throat as his temper raised.
"Jibril you can intimidate people whenever you want but that won't work on me if you don't want to fight then that's fine will just have to find something else and since we're in a training ground we got a lot of option i'll even let you decide she face draco right back at him without budging down
Draco butts heads with Jibril, both snarling and hissing at each other. Shimbala sees that the other soldiers are beginning to notice them, some start coming around asking her about who Jibril was and where did she come from, why was she butting heads with Draco, the series of questions pop up and Shimbala waves them away telling them get back to work sternly. Shimbala turns back while some do return to their routines and training, she pushes the two quarreling duo back having enough of their feud. "This isn't going to solve anything at this rate"
"Then what do you suggest we do about it" Draco snarled at Shimbala.
"Like she just said, we're in a training ground we got a lot of options" Shimbala replied, "If you're not going to fight her in a brawl, and she won't deal with this in court, then how about we settle this using our heads or a wager"
"I'm listening" Draco calmly answers.
"A challenge? What sort of challenge?" Jibril questions intrigued.
"Draco's strong and has lots of stamina" Shimbala implied, "Jibril is fast and agile. It'd a difficult job putting you on equal footing, but we could try ... The Crucible"
"A race?" Draco states.
"I can take him" Jibril boasts.
"Are ya afraid of a little competition, Draco?" Shimbala smiled mischievously.
Draco huffs hot air from his nose: "Fine, don't blame me for your miscarriage"
"Then it's settled"
Shimbala whistles with her fingers and announces to the rest of the base to saddle up and get everyone on over to the obstacle course.
The Crucible is comprised of twenty stages of different exercises and movements using various forms of walls, bars, towers, trenches, equipment usage and distancing targets.
- First is the Hobbler, a series of footholds of circular wheels that racers must drop in and out as they trek the course without tripping in the corners of the wells or mis-stepping and injuring themselves.
- Second is the Hopper, races must uses the elevated wooden posts to hop onto to the next level of posts to reach a wall and climb over it using a short rope and drop down a ten foot drop.
- Third is the Monkey Bars, using the overhead metal bars to swing themselves across and open trench of mud and dirt, the racers must go through five sets of bars to reach the end without falling and landing at the end of this course.
- Fourth is the Barbwire Trench, racers must shuffle on their bellies to crawl under barbed wire twenty yards forward without snagging or getting caught in the wires.
- Fifth is the Tunneler, racers must pass into a five foot in diameter pipe buried underground and get through without falling or getting stuck, the piping gets smaller and racers must crawl to get out.
- Sixth is the Gauntlet, a series of sharp bladed posts that spin and others holding blunted poles meant to knock runners from getting through, races must be vigilant as they come through and the blades aren't sharp but instead blunted enough to mimic the feeling.
- Seventh is the Vaulter, a short distancing of walls of different heights that racers must climb over to get on the other side and some are harder to reach without a running start.
- Eighth is the Tower, racers must climb the massive tower of wood using rope and the port holes for feet, reach the top and climb back down the same way on the opposite side.
- Ninth is the Brawler, a manned course where grunts try to stop the racers from getting to the next course using only spears, staffs and polearms with wooden heads as their weapons or using their fists and grappling to hinder them.
- Tenth is the Shuffler, a large tower with two walls that racers must scale up using their bodies to reach the top and slap a bell to signal the return trip back to the starting line.
- Eleventh is a return trip through the Brawler area
- Twelve is the Mole, a series of trenches that stretch the length of the course that can be navigated over or within. Those that travel over the trenches with find bear traps and Punji boards (spikes) while those that travel in the trench must use tunnels and navigate the labyrinth quickly with some deadends.
- Thirteen is the Sickle, pendulum of large blades swing to and fro that must be avoided with little room for error.
- Fourteen is the Foxhole, hidden pitfalls that aim to hinder progress and trap racers.
- Fifteen is the Tunneler again but reversed
- Sixteen is a return over the Monkey Bars and the pits below
- Seventeen is the Rabbit, racers must use the wooden posts to hop onto the next series of long planted posts over a very deep pit and some of these aren't solidly placed with some rotten posts.
- Eighteen is the Squirrel, rubber bullets are shot at the racers to avoid from the firing squads on the sides of the course who are only allowed to fire straight ahead.
- Nineteen is a long stretch of ground with dips and pot holes and hidden spring boards
- Twenty is the last obstacle course strictly the last stretch of the race towards the finish which is entirely focused on pushing the last bit of speed and pushing the limits of one's stamina.
"Then what do you suggest we do about it" Draco snarled at Shimbala.
"Like she just said, we're in a training ground we got a lot of options" Shimbala replied, "If you're not going to fight her in a brawl, and she won't deal with this in court, then how about we settle this using our heads or a wager"
"I'm listening" Draco calmly answers.
"A challenge? What sort of challenge?" Jibril questions intrigued.
"Draco's strong and has lots of stamina" Shimbala implied, "Jibril is fast and agile. It'd a difficult job putting you on equal footing, but we could try ... The Crucible"
"A race?" Draco states.
"I can take him" Jibril boasts.
"Are ya afraid of a little competition, Draco?" Shimbala smiled mischievously.
Draco huffs hot air from his nose: "Fine, don't blame me for your miscarriage"
"Then it's settled"
Shimbala whistles with her fingers and announces to the rest of the base to saddle up and get everyone on over to the obstacle course.
The Crucible is comprised of twenty stages of different exercises and movements using various forms of walls, bars, towers, trenches, equipment usage and distancing targets.
- First is the Hobbler, a series of footholds of circular wheels that racers must drop in and out as they trek the course without tripping in the corners of the wells or mis-stepping and injuring themselves.
- Second is the Hopper, races must uses the elevated wooden posts to hop onto to the next level of posts to reach a wall and climb over it using a short rope and drop down a ten foot drop.
- Third is the Monkey Bars, using the overhead metal bars to swing themselves across and open trench of mud and dirt, the racers must go through five sets of bars to reach the end without falling and landing at the end of this course.
- Fourth is the Barbwire Trench, racers must shuffle on their bellies to crawl under barbed wire twenty yards forward without snagging or getting caught in the wires.
- Fifth is the Tunneler, racers must pass into a five foot in diameter pipe buried underground and get through without falling or getting stuck, the piping gets smaller and racers must crawl to get out.
- Sixth is the Gauntlet, a series of sharp bladed posts that spin and others holding blunted poles meant to knock runners from getting through, races must be vigilant as they come through and the blades aren't sharp but instead blunted enough to mimic the feeling.
- Seventh is the Vaulter, a short distancing of walls of different heights that racers must climb over to get on the other side and some are harder to reach without a running start.
- Eighth is the Tower, racers must climb the massive tower of wood using rope and the port holes for feet, reach the top and climb back down the same way on the opposite side.
- Ninth is the Brawler, a manned course where grunts try to stop the racers from getting to the next course using only spears, staffs and polearms with wooden heads as their weapons or using their fists and grappling to hinder them.
- Tenth is the Shuffler, a large tower with two walls that racers must scale up using their bodies to reach the top and slap a bell to signal the return trip back to the starting line.
- Eleventh is a return trip through the Brawler area
- Twelve is the Mole, a series of trenches that stretch the length of the course that can be navigated over or within. Those that travel over the trenches with find bear traps and Punji boards (spikes) while those that travel in the trench must use tunnels and navigate the labyrinth quickly with some deadends.
- Thirteen is the Sickle, pendulum of large blades swing to and fro that must be avoided with little room for error.
- Fourteen is the Foxhole, hidden pitfalls that aim to hinder progress and trap racers.
- Fifteen is the Tunneler again but reversed
- Sixteen is a return over the Monkey Bars and the pits below
- Seventeen is the Rabbit, racers must use the wooden posts to hop onto the next series of long planted posts over a very deep pit and some of these aren't solidly placed with some rotten posts.
- Eighteen is the Squirrel, rubber bullets are shot at the racers to avoid from the firing squads on the sides of the course who are only allowed to fire straight ahead.
- Nineteen is a long stretch of ground with dips and pot holes and hidden spring boards
- Twenty is the last obstacle course strictly the last stretch of the race towards the finish which is entirely focused on pushing the last bit of speed and pushing the limits of one's stamina.
Shimbala is happy to see the entire base making it out to The Crucible like this to watch these two racers compete against one another on this long and exhausting obstacle course. Over a mile of obstacle courses, soldiers, militiamen, guards and citizens living in the surrounding area gathered to watch this competition. Rows of people gathered and cheer on the racers taking a step towards the starting line signaled by the three large pole waving the Canaanite flag. Draco removed all of his armor plates and strips down to his loincloth, Jibril strips down to her breeches and dropping her backpack and leaving the rifle with Shimbala. The two stretched and cracked their bones, carefully study each other preparing to get their ground and warming up themselves for a briskest workout of their lives.
Jibril could do some smack talk, or take in the sight of Draco, or focus on her stretching.
Jibril could do some smack talk, or take in the sight of Draco, or focus on her stretching.
"All righty then!!" Shimbala announced to the awaiting crowd, she yells with a boisterous voice. "Ladies and Gentlemen, two challengers approach the Crucible!"
Shimbala gestures to Jibril with a hand to the right side of the field: "Jibril of Medressa!"
Shimbala gestures to Jibril with the opposing hand to the left side of the field: "Draco Baelfire of Redfallen!"
Crowd jeers and cheers for the competitors.
"Both racers must reach the other side of The Crucible, ring the bells at the top of the towers and venture all the way back to this starting line here" Shimbala pointed to the ground, "If you fail to cross each course, drop off a course, or try to cheat and go around, you must redo it again. The fastest and most agile opponent must cross the finishing line before the other makes it through, last man or woman standing wins!"
Shimbala walks in front of the starting line and looks to Jibril and Draco taking a sprinter's stance with one outstretched leg and the other planted on the ground, tails sticking up or wrapping around their waist (in Jibril's case). Shimbala has her hand up in a chopping gesture and raised it high, looking to both of them, the crowd goes quiet as they await the snap.
"You're going down, old man" Jibril taunts.
Draco scoffs and huffs a burst of flame from his flaring nostrils.
"GO!!" Shimbala shouts, dropping her chop down.
1 - Hobbler
J) Jibril sprints forward, upon reaching the beginning of the series of wooden tires, her light feet allowed her to get through on the tips of her toes and gracefully hops through each one with ease as it became second nature to her agile gift. She drops a single foot into the well of each wheel and noticed that it was smaller than the wheel itself which could explain why she going through it without tripping but the sharp incline of the well itself is a bit of a bother considering she has to raise up her knees up to her stomach to fully get her feet up, over then stretch out her slender legs given her height in. Upon reaching the end of the course, Jibril looks over her shoulder.
D) Draco has large feet, flat footed and clumsy when he starts out, each time he gets into one wheel, he either misses it or trips on a few and carries a wheel or two and powering through the next one before falling on his chest and spreading out on the course. Kicking off the added weight of his wooden tires and sore ankles, he crawls over the bed of wheel and gets back onto his large feet and carefuly takes his time going in and out of each one costing him time to finish, giving Jibril enough time to get into the second stage of the Crucible.
2 - Hopper
J) Jibril starts the course with a good lead on Draco, she leaps to the first post which is 3 feet off the ground, uses her tail to balance herself on the first one then hops her other foot onto the next one and steadying her arms to stabilize her flight as she table hops one after another in quick succession like she taught Kak'lin and Sim'one to do with the wooden crates and wall jumping. all those months chasing thieves really put her in the best physical shape for doing this particular course, almost like she's on a rooftop jumping over large gaps and stepping on the edges. She's in her element while doing this skipping and gliding over two posts while maintaining her balance. She reaches for the rope but misses and catches herself on the edge of the wall and shimmy onto it the rocks on the divider looking back to Draco.
D) Draco jogs up to the first post and steps onto it instead of jumping given his height and leg length, he walks onto each and every post slowly and stable and using his own tail to keep his center of gravity on his chest and back. He doesn't miss a step until he misses one and falls forward and slams his chin onto the last half of the course, spurring the crowd to cringe "oooooooo' before Draco gnashed his teeth and claws the post he hits and digs into the shaft then helping himself back onto the post and climbs onto the next then reaches the end and leaps for the rope and grabs it. His sheer weight caused the rope to snap and he claws the side of the wall and dangles a bit, looking down. Not giving up, he dug his claws into the side of the wall and climbs up breaking holes and using them to get up the wall quicker and over the divider. He gets over and sees Jibril is already finishing the third course.
3 - Monkey Bars
J) Jibril is having a blast going through the beginning stages of these courses! She leaps for the monkey bars overhead and swing her hands grabbing and latching them skipping every second bar to maintain her reach and stability, given her lightweight body, she doesn't feel as though she's having all the weight pulling down on her. Twenty bars each and ending with a two feet distance between sets of monkey bars, Jibril swings her tail and grabs the first of the next set of bars and swung her body back and uses the momentum to carry her to the next set of monkey bars and does the same repeated cycle of skipping every other bar as she has in order to get to the end, focusing on reaching in, she doesn't think about the sheer 7 feet drop below her the further she goes. Even if she dropsl she'll have to start over regardless if she could jump back up, it was too deeply dug to allow her to do so. Reaching the end of the course, Jibril doesn't bother looking back and sprinted for the next course ahead of her.
D) Draco loses his patients and drops down to the ground level of the last course with a heavy thundering of the ground beneath him and powers through to the monkey bars and leaps up to grab the bars. Draco has a good grip on the bars but his heavyset body weighting him down is making him slow to move as gracefully, but he took his time grabbing each bar and keeping a steady release and grapple and keeping her body straight and swaying each time to keep him moving forward. When he gets to the end of his first set of bars, Draco swings himself and catches the next set and feeling the strain of his weight pulling him down and the strength of his arms bulk up as he forces himself to keep going despite the weakness in his arms. He keeps going until reaching the end and drops onto the ledge of the deep pit behind him and lunged forward and crawls for a breif moment before jogging into the next course.
4 - Barbedwire Trench
J) Jibril slides on to her belly when facing a large field of barbed wire and her slim and toned body makes the mud feel warm and thick but easier to move through with ease. She hits a patch of dry earth and starts to crawl using her knees and elbows while keeping her chin close to the ground and avoiding the closeness of her horns touching the wires above her. She's determined to get this through and over with. But she can't help but feel amazed how well she's doing that by the end of her thought, she was already at the end. Wiping the mud and dirt off her body, she takes a moment to take a deep breath while she's in the lead and looks back.
D) Draco is a course and a half behind Jibril when she takes a short breather. He got over the monkey bars if barely falling into the pit, when he sees Jibril stopping to take a breath, he pushes himself to go faster. Jibril took off the moment he started picking up the pace to reach the trench and getting away. Draco snarls and grits his teeth when he has to force himself into the small gap under the barbed wire nets and crawls on his belly, his thick ass scales and spikes along his spine catch and snag on the steel netting and he grunts and curses at them for making this course unfairly prejudice against bigger people. Draco digs into the earth with his claws to deepen his path and he powers through sweeping and digging the earth to the side of him even if it makes him slower in completing the course and catching up to Jibril. By the end of it Jibril now has two courses ahead of him.
5 - Tunneler
J) Jibril was already limber and 'lubed'up by the mud that squeezing through the shrinking pipe towards the end was a breeze for her but her legs and knees get a little worn out from quickening her pace in the beginning. She exits the end of the pipe and shoots herself into the next course.
D) Draco slides onto his knees and crawls on all fours the further and further he goes into the pipe, he struggled to get his big body through the small gap until the mud coating his scales helped him pop out the end and he rolls onto his feet and climbs to his feet and picking up the pace.
6 - Gauntlet
J) This one was trickier than Jibril was hoping for. The Gauntlet looks intimidating but getting through it requires good reflexes or really tough skin. Thankfully, Jibril's lithe and slender body helps her navigate the course, albeit slowly as to not stir up the swinging dummies to throw their raised arms coated in sharp blades and suddenly slicing her scales open and batting her around into other dummies and knocking her out of the coursel, forcing her to restart the course again. Carefully, she ducked and weaved, crawled and arches her back and limbs to pass through the smallest of gaps and openings without touching them. Once Jibril hits the midway point, the dummies were so close together and wielding blunted weapons and wooden head staffs, she had to power through them hard enough to push them aside. They swivel on springs and ball joints that by pushing into them, Jibril is thrown back and spun the dummies behind her that she had just took extra precautions to avoid and now she dancing around the swords and bladed arms trying to get through the dummies and finds it impossible to do without climbing over them. Thinking outside the box, Jibril climbs up one dummy and springs off the head and clears the tight groups of dummies and lands back into the thick of things and powers through the last grouping taking a batting to her chest and sides.
D) Draco sees the course ahead of him, he crosses his arms and lowers his head and charges into the gauntlet of dummies. The swords and bladed arms of the dummies scrape and sharply deflected off his tough scales as he tackles each dummy and shields his face from the attacks when they all swing furiously. With a battlecry, Draco doubles his efforts and crashes through the midway point where the spring dummies were and doesn't stop moving. When they got in his way, he crushed them under foot and unable to stop him from gliding over the bent over dummies bent back on their swivels by his sheer weight crushing them and once he was off them, they stayed in place broken, battered and destroyed completely. Draco reaches the end, looks back: there wasn't a gauntlet left after he broke through with broken wooden dummies littering the ground. Draco is catching up to Jibril with her 1/2 to a 1/4 of a lead on him.
7 - Vaulter
J) Jibril's lead was wasted on the gauntlet, taking her time with a shirt break and taking her time navigating the course like that ate too much of her time. The walls were easy enough since it requires her to leap up, grab a ledge and pulling herself up. But the higher and higher she went, she had to use a rope to climb a sheer twenty feet tall wall and climb over. By the time she gets to the top, Draco was there starting the course!
D) Draco looks to the right and sees Jibril struggling to get up the twenty foot wall using the rope. He grins and storms walls and jumps over one, grabs the second one, swinging his body over it and throwing his tail over, he grabs the top of the third wall, he claws his feet into the wall and climbs over time. Draco keeps this clawing and climbing walls and throwing his entire weight over the divider worked out for him until reaching the twenty foot wall, he ties the rope around his waist knowing that the rope wouldn't support his weight even if he tried. He dug his claws into the side and climbs up the wooden wall without a care for damaging the wooden course and reaches the top and meeting Jibril who was just on her way down the other side of the wall by rappelling down the wall with her rope. Draco sat on the divider, undoes his rope and swings his feet over and looks down. Jibril looks up and sees the rope going the other side: "No way!". Draco drops and using his claw on the wall and scratching a claw lining into the face of the face to slow down his descent, Draco lands on the ground with a heavy rumbling. He now has the lead!
8 - Tower
J) Draco has a short lead! Jibril drops down when she rappels and takes a running start at the wall just as Draco begins tying his rope around his waist. Jibril springs her feet six feet and runs up the side of the wall and jumps to get an extra three feet of air lead before she grabs the rope above her and starts climbing the wall using only the rope and walking up the face of the tower with the rope just there to support her lightweight frame as it would for Draco who now has a disadvantage of being behind. Jibril reaches the top and swings her body with the rope around her and catches the ledge with her foreleg and grabs the edge and rolls onto her back and carries the rope over from the opposite side and she rappels down the side of the tower she had done for the only course. She touches down on the ground and sprints for the next course.
D) Draco is already familiar with this climbing thing, he used the port holes and climbs his way up. He's a natural climber than some skinny kid with all her fancy trickery! He powers up the side of the wall faster and faster not even letting the rope do any of the work and he reaches the top of the tower and decides to do a repeat performance and drops down to the ground to maintain a close distance with Jibril. He picked up the pace, feeling the quaking of his knees bothering him, good thing they're sturdy and thick boned.
9 - Brawler
J) Jibril faced a large group of militiamen and soldier wielding practice staffs and they swarmed over Jibril, it was a chaotic ballroom dance of swings and lunges as jibril bobbed and weave through it. She gets struck in the face then hammered by another from behind her, she drops to the ground, rolls to the side and slid her body under the legs of the soldiers charging her then with a kick of her feet, pushing the chargers forward into their friends does she use her tail to leg sweep them and shove off the ground and sucker punching the ones not protected by a face mask or chest guard. Being swarmed like this and not focusing on getting through the course is throwing Jibril off as they're relentless. She plows through when she sees Draco just casually walking on through the course as he had less people fighting him, by the looks of it they decided to walk away when he approached. She doesn't care, she jumps over the brawlers and kicks them in the jewels and rolls over their backs and slides between the group of legs in front of her and coming out in the end of the course and rising to her feet. She was behind Draco!
D) Draco enters the next course and sees Jibril struggling to get through and doing everything in her ability to evade, deflect and dodging. He looks forward and see that everyone before him is very much intimidated by him. But the soldiers that did this course knows that this is what must be done and they show no fear against their opponent, unlike the militiamen who drop their weapons and backed away. Thankful these men were armed and padded down with chest armor and greaves for this particular encounter. The soldiers charged in, Draco grabs one by the head and punches him in the chest like a love tap and he gets knocked the wind out of him before Draco lets go, Draco sweeps the soldiers aside and casually brushing them aside trying his best to withhold all of his strength from tearing through their protective armor. He noticed that some of his hits broke through their chest armor and breaking their poorly crafted weapons and he picks up the pace and storms off the course at the end and they stop giving chase after him.
10 - Shuffler
J) Jibril and Draco battle head to head scaling up the final towers together. Jibril wall hopped and throwing her back against the wall to brace herself before dropping her legs down to stop her descent. Sliding down slowly and kickking herslef off one side and onto the other, she leaps three short bursts before resting her back to the wall and stopping her descent the further up she goes and the weight of gravity making it harder and harder for her to keep doing the bursts of jumps. She stops to single jumps until reach 3/4 of the way up before she must uses her arms and legs to push herself up and walking up the length of the shaft using both her hands and feet to guide her in synchronized order. Upon reaching the top, she stretched her tail up as far as she could and tickles the bell to ring several times before she slowly slides her hands and feet off to the side to drift down slowly as she begins her slow and steady descent down to the ground. She reaches the bottom but felt the weight of her own body crumbling forward. This was intense!
D) Draco started his ascension by scaling the walls with his hands and feet and clawing the wooden walls with his toes and nails to catch them and using the port holes as a way to guide him upwards at every other point of ingress before forcing himselce up against the center wall and uses the port holes more often than if he were to climb the normal way. His weight was heavy the higher and higher he goes, struggles against the gravity bearing down at him that he grits his teeth until he reaches the top and swipes the bell and claws his way down the face of the towering obstacle and drags himself all the way down and meet Jibril who was exhausted beyond measure. The two lock eyes as they catch their breaths, they stop then returned to the race.
11 - Brawler 2
J) Jibril sees the soldiers and militiamen, she slide and leaped over them, tablehopping as she had done before, but this time, they learned her tricks! They sweep the air and crouched when she went for her jumps and they dogpiled her and using their fists to beat her down and pinning her to the ground while they punch and kick her, Jibril guarded herself then punches and kicks her way out of the pile and slides underneath them and escaping narrowly while they were focused on the people trying to hold on to her. She makes it out with several bruises and heavily breathing hard.
D) Draco body tackles through the soldiers in his wake and they fell swiftly as he charged through them and they don't not hinder him.
12 - Mole
J) Jibril took to the high ground spotted the trap on the surface, she drops into the trenches and crawls underneath the tunnels and weaves her way through the pathways finding dead ends and smaller tunnels she won't fit through, she climbs up the final trench and find that it was clear to her and doesn't bother to check for punji boards until she steps on one and gets a nail puncturing through her feet and she falls to the ground with the board holding it down on the ground. Jibril yanks out the foot from the trap and quickly climbs to her feet but starts hobbling as she bleed, her adreniline pumping hard, she stops feeling the pain and the urge to keep going drives her forward.
D) Draco needs to close the distance with Jibril and takes the high ground, his heavy feet fell on bear traps and punji boards but her storms forward ignroing that a few were taken with him and the chains holding the bear trap were broken when he powerful through like a juggernaut of a beast, the punji boards that try to puncture his feet were instead bent and pegged into the ground by his weight and he quickly makes it through the course and sees Jibril on her side struggle with a board trap hurting her and causing her to lag behind. Draco takes a moment at the end of the course to remove the three bear traps locking on to his right leg and left then rips the mouths open with a grit of his teeth and then tosses them aside and continues forward with huge gashes of missing scales and blood dribbling out of his wounds.
13 - Sickle
J) Jibril is pretty sure this was meant to kill her, she's exhuasted by this point and tries to take this slowly and wraps her tail around her waist and keeping her hands on them to prevent them from coming close to getting swept up by the pendulums swinging through her path with a four feet clearing in between the blades moved by the soldiers pulling and tugging at ropes on a pulley system to make the blades move. Jibril just shakes her head at this ridiculous idea for a obstacle and she perfects her timing as she observed the blades and counts in her head and mouthing them as she steps through and counts again once through. She at the end and breaths a sigh of relief but realizes that she left a trial of blood behind her from her foot prints. She needs to keep going.
D) Draco doesn't stop moving, he sprints forward and lunges at the pendulums and rolls onto his knees at the right moent then catches a pendulum just as it comes right for him. He shove the pendulum back and he catches the next one with both his hands the shoves it back then using his swing momentum he does the same again and again for each blade as he grinds through the course and catches up with Jibril at the end and together they spring for the next stage.
14 - Foxhole
J) Jibril looks around and sees tufts of ground turned up and uprooted with faint patches of dirt revealing that there are traps here of at least hidden ones she should be aware of. She hopscotches around and over these tufts of grass and dirt and finds that it is trickery to do when she's not thinking clearly and her body is punishing itself for going at this as hard as she was. She makes a stupid move and loses her balance falls onto the ground and sinks into the foxhole that's ten feet deep and she claws her way up and out of the hole, she struggles to climb, her arms and legs are too tired to do it. She's feeling nauseous and numb by this powerful urge to drop onto her knees and give-up! Heaving hard, she musters up the strength to keep going and tries again then falls on her butt. She leaps again and catches the edge of the hole and peels off tufts of grass and throwing behind her as she wuickly grabs more and more loose grass patches that force her to keep digging at the edge in fright that she might fall in, she screams as she panics and manages to grab a root of some kind and is glad she found a spot to grab and pull herself up onto. She successfully climbs and rolls onto her back, breathing hard, she crawls on all fours when she sees Draco behind her catching up to her. She pants and laughs wildly as she tries getting up but her legs are telling her to not do that and going limp. Jibril hit her legs and fights to get up and drags herself towards the next course and then her legs muster enough strength to get up and carry her forward again.
D) Draco is exhausted, his knees are very sore and trying to buckle against him. He trips on a tuft of grass in his delirious state of exhaustion, he falls into a foxhole in the beginning but he was too big to fall in completely. Draco crawls over the hole and crawled along his belly a short distance feeling up the ground with his hands to figure out which is the safest spots to move over and letting his body glide over the ground and finding that some holes are dug too thinly to catch someone as big as he was and he dodges them by rolling onto his back or shifting his weight to either side. He steadily get to the end and see Jibril hobbling away quickly when she spotted him gaining the advantage on this course. He climbs to his feet and felt the range of numbness hit him but he isn't in the same hobbling state as Jibril is, he powers onward with his bleeding slowing down and scabbing over his missing scales.
15 - Tunneler 2
J) Jibril is relieved that this course allowed her to crawl, her legs were thankful as well when they go limp again and fell asleep on her. Using her knees and rolling on her back to slip on through the pipes and pushing her back with her feet in order to wake them back up, she keeps up this motion until she slides out of the tube and rolls backwards and lands onto her feet and she falls forward onto her elbows to catch her. This wasn't the plan, her arms are starting to feel the strain as well. She turns and sees the monkey bars: "oh no"
D) Draco hated this part, he crouches down and tries to fit himself inside the small tube opening. He rested himself when he doesn't fit the second time going in. He forces himself to go in and breaking off some of his scales that hindered his progress and breaks through and rolls onto his face and skidding along the metal interior as if he were birthed and kicking up dirt and dust. He huffs under his breath and claws his way forward not bothering to get on his knees and spreading out his weight evenly to keep him stable as he moves. Getting out out of the tube, he grabs the lip of the top, pulls himself up and stretches out his legs and cracks his back and strides forward towards the monkey bars.
16 - Monkey Bars 2
J) Jibril stretched and grabbed the bars, she was too tired to keep this up while walking and her arms were too worn out from climbing and scaling walls, now she has to traverse this chasm. What a damn break she's got. She starts off slowly and pacing herself better learning that the short bursts only wear her out more and quickly, the strain of her legs is lost on her as the weight is all in her lower body causing them to go numb and stiff with her tail dangling freely. Jibril is sweating, she shouldn't be able to sweat! Her snake oil pours out of her soft scales and coat her body in a thick mucus like substance and her breath is moist and heavy, hands grabbing and releasing with the swinging motion of her limp body carrying her. At the next set, she holds the last bar of her previous set and then swing her body forward and catches the first bar of the next set and does the skipping of the next bar using both hands instead of releasing one hand and catching with the other. This steady pattern helps Jibril reach the end and she flings herself far enough until she fell flat on her back. She groans weakly.
D) Draco has maintain the most stable of paces and even though his slow start and powerful strength has pushed him this far, he doesn't seem to stop. He takes his time going over the chasm taking each bar slowly and deliberately and cautious checking his grip before moving onto the next and slowly keeping up a better pacing until his adrenaline kicks in and he goes faster and faster. He skips every third bar and grabs the forth with his reach making an impressive stride and his weight matching his grip strength, he doesn't struggle as he holds his own on this course and making it to the end without incident. He breaks off into a run.
17 - Rabbit
J) At this point Jibril doesn't have the energy to care how long it takes her to go through this part, she just walked onto the wooden posts and lightly hops from side to the side, feeling out the posts before settling all her weight onto one then pushing off. She balanced herself to the next and then another, she broke a post but hops quickly over on the the nearest post and both her feet slide down the shafts to two opposing posts into a full leg split. Jibril shimmies up on the post before her and cpoils her tail on the rear post behind herself and she climbs up and slithers on top of the rear post her tail is on and sets herself onto it. She turns and goes further and springs off her post then lands over the large gap between herself and the finishing line of this particular course. She lands on her feet and groans in pain as her foot was killing her for the Punji board she noticed that she has a nail sticking out of it. Great!
D) Draco walks normally onto the wooden posts and hopes they support his weight given everything else hasn't, surprisingly they do with how buried deep beneath the ground they were with a deeper pit than the surface they reached. there were rocks throw in here with the posts to add support, hmm, god to know. Draco stride sna stretches out his legs and climbs up and over the posts and carefully supporting his weight with his tail learning from Jibril's example. He reaches the end without incident and carefully drop his chest forward onto the ground and crawls up further so he doesn't slide into the deep pit and has to reset the course for himself.
18 - Squirrel
J) Jibril was already hobbling and exhausted, she sees Draco powering upward and onward at this point. But good gods, these people are insane! The firing squad of machine gunners holding up their rifles at them and firing lines of rubber bullets that bounce of them hurts like the nine circles hell! Jibril gets hit many many times before realizing she need to sprint through this but this thought only got her shot more. She drops to the ground after getting struck in the face with a rubber round and just crawls on her belly, it seems like she gets better results from it anyway but also to protect her belly full of eggs. She keeps gettin stray shots to the kidneys which makes she scream out in pain and yelling profanity at the squads, it seemed to make them aim more accurately at her as they keep firing off hailstorm of bullets echoing around the Crucible and mountain range. She reaches the end and climbs to her knees and jumps onto her feet and jogs towards the next course.
D) Draco isn't bothered by the rubber bullets rippling off his scale and he just takes every round like brittle bullets from toy guns hitting him and falling to the ground. He walks on through without a problem but does take a few stray shot to the softer parts of his body that cause him some measure of pain like his groin and ass, but he's learned to fight through the pain. He reached the end and looks back to see Jibril struggling to get through this course and takes the lead advantage.
19 - Trap
J) Jibril jogs behind Draco who has the lead, she noticed the course they're on are just small annoying traps and tripwires. She hops over them and vaulted over the larger ones with a running start and then picks up the speed and breaks into a full-on sprint until she battling Draco as the approach the end of the course.
D) Draco already has the lead against Jibril, he doesn't hold back and starts running and storming over the traps and hopping to the side to avoid the larger ones and not losing his momentum while doing so. Draco sees Jibril and they race toward the end of the course.
20 - Sprinter
J & D) This was it! This was the last stretch of the Crucible and they were putting the of their stamina into the last push of the course! Jibril and Draco have come a long way for see the finishing line, battling neck and neck coming toward Shimbala waving one of their flags with all the people screaming on top of their lungs and cheering them on for the finale they've been waiting for. Panting, hearts racing, their hearts beating against the throats, ears and heads ringing loudly, their heads are drowned out by blinding white noise and the cold air of the night sweeping over the region and hitting both of them hard in their exposed bodies. Dry heaving and exhausted beyond belief, they keep pushing their advances and sprinting all the way towards the finishing line. But as it happens, everyone was shocked by the results of the race: it was a draw
Shimbala gestures to Jibril with a hand to the right side of the field: "Jibril of Medressa!"
Shimbala gestures to Jibril with the opposing hand to the left side of the field: "Draco Baelfire of Redfallen!"
Crowd jeers and cheers for the competitors.
"Both racers must reach the other side of The Crucible, ring the bells at the top of the towers and venture all the way back to this starting line here" Shimbala pointed to the ground, "If you fail to cross each course, drop off a course, or try to cheat and go around, you must redo it again. The fastest and most agile opponent must cross the finishing line before the other makes it through, last man or woman standing wins!"
Shimbala walks in front of the starting line and looks to Jibril and Draco taking a sprinter's stance with one outstretched leg and the other planted on the ground, tails sticking up or wrapping around their waist (in Jibril's case). Shimbala has her hand up in a chopping gesture and raised it high, looking to both of them, the crowd goes quiet as they await the snap.
"You're going down, old man" Jibril taunts.
Draco scoffs and huffs a burst of flame from his flaring nostrils.
"GO!!" Shimbala shouts, dropping her chop down.
1 - Hobbler
J) Jibril sprints forward, upon reaching the beginning of the series of wooden tires, her light feet allowed her to get through on the tips of her toes and gracefully hops through each one with ease as it became second nature to her agile gift. She drops a single foot into the well of each wheel and noticed that it was smaller than the wheel itself which could explain why she going through it without tripping but the sharp incline of the well itself is a bit of a bother considering she has to raise up her knees up to her stomach to fully get her feet up, over then stretch out her slender legs given her height in. Upon reaching the end of the course, Jibril looks over her shoulder.
D) Draco has large feet, flat footed and clumsy when he starts out, each time he gets into one wheel, he either misses it or trips on a few and carries a wheel or two and powering through the next one before falling on his chest and spreading out on the course. Kicking off the added weight of his wooden tires and sore ankles, he crawls over the bed of wheel and gets back onto his large feet and carefuly takes his time going in and out of each one costing him time to finish, giving Jibril enough time to get into the second stage of the Crucible.
2 - Hopper
J) Jibril starts the course with a good lead on Draco, she leaps to the first post which is 3 feet off the ground, uses her tail to balance herself on the first one then hops her other foot onto the next one and steadying her arms to stabilize her flight as she table hops one after another in quick succession like she taught Kak'lin and Sim'one to do with the wooden crates and wall jumping. all those months chasing thieves really put her in the best physical shape for doing this particular course, almost like she's on a rooftop jumping over large gaps and stepping on the edges. She's in her element while doing this skipping and gliding over two posts while maintaining her balance. She reaches for the rope but misses and catches herself on the edge of the wall and shimmy onto it the rocks on the divider looking back to Draco.
D) Draco jogs up to the first post and steps onto it instead of jumping given his height and leg length, he walks onto each and every post slowly and stable and using his own tail to keep his center of gravity on his chest and back. He doesn't miss a step until he misses one and falls forward and slams his chin onto the last half of the course, spurring the crowd to cringe "oooooooo' before Draco gnashed his teeth and claws the post he hits and digs into the shaft then helping himself back onto the post and climbs onto the next then reaches the end and leaps for the rope and grabs it. His sheer weight caused the rope to snap and he claws the side of the wall and dangles a bit, looking down. Not giving up, he dug his claws into the side of the wall and climbs up breaking holes and using them to get up the wall quicker and over the divider. He gets over and sees Jibril is already finishing the third course.
3 - Monkey Bars
J) Jibril is having a blast going through the beginning stages of these courses! She leaps for the monkey bars overhead and swing her hands grabbing and latching them skipping every second bar to maintain her reach and stability, given her lightweight body, she doesn't feel as though she's having all the weight pulling down on her. Twenty bars each and ending with a two feet distance between sets of monkey bars, Jibril swings her tail and grabs the first of the next set of bars and swung her body back and uses the momentum to carry her to the next set of monkey bars and does the same repeated cycle of skipping every other bar as she has in order to get to the end, focusing on reaching in, she doesn't think about the sheer 7 feet drop below her the further she goes. Even if she dropsl she'll have to start over regardless if she could jump back up, it was too deeply dug to allow her to do so. Reaching the end of the course, Jibril doesn't bother looking back and sprinted for the next course ahead of her.
D) Draco loses his patients and drops down to the ground level of the last course with a heavy thundering of the ground beneath him and powers through to the monkey bars and leaps up to grab the bars. Draco has a good grip on the bars but his heavyset body weighting him down is making him slow to move as gracefully, but he took his time grabbing each bar and keeping a steady release and grapple and keeping her body straight and swaying each time to keep him moving forward. When he gets to the end of his first set of bars, Draco swings himself and catches the next set and feeling the strain of his weight pulling him down and the strength of his arms bulk up as he forces himself to keep going despite the weakness in his arms. He keeps going until reaching the end and drops onto the ledge of the deep pit behind him and lunged forward and crawls for a breif moment before jogging into the next course.
4 - Barbedwire Trench
J) Jibril slides on to her belly when facing a large field of barbed wire and her slim and toned body makes the mud feel warm and thick but easier to move through with ease. She hits a patch of dry earth and starts to crawl using her knees and elbows while keeping her chin close to the ground and avoiding the closeness of her horns touching the wires above her. She's determined to get this through and over with. But she can't help but feel amazed how well she's doing that by the end of her thought, she was already at the end. Wiping the mud and dirt off her body, she takes a moment to take a deep breath while she's in the lead and looks back.
D) Draco is a course and a half behind Jibril when she takes a short breather. He got over the monkey bars if barely falling into the pit, when he sees Jibril stopping to take a breath, he pushes himself to go faster. Jibril took off the moment he started picking up the pace to reach the trench and getting away. Draco snarls and grits his teeth when he has to force himself into the small gap under the barbed wire nets and crawls on his belly, his thick ass scales and spikes along his spine catch and snag on the steel netting and he grunts and curses at them for making this course unfairly prejudice against bigger people. Draco digs into the earth with his claws to deepen his path and he powers through sweeping and digging the earth to the side of him even if it makes him slower in completing the course and catching up to Jibril. By the end of it Jibril now has two courses ahead of him.
5 - Tunneler
J) Jibril was already limber and 'lubed'up by the mud that squeezing through the shrinking pipe towards the end was a breeze for her but her legs and knees get a little worn out from quickening her pace in the beginning. She exits the end of the pipe and shoots herself into the next course.
D) Draco slides onto his knees and crawls on all fours the further and further he goes into the pipe, he struggled to get his big body through the small gap until the mud coating his scales helped him pop out the end and he rolls onto his feet and climbs to his feet and picking up the pace.
6 - Gauntlet
J) This one was trickier than Jibril was hoping for. The Gauntlet looks intimidating but getting through it requires good reflexes or really tough skin. Thankfully, Jibril's lithe and slender body helps her navigate the course, albeit slowly as to not stir up the swinging dummies to throw their raised arms coated in sharp blades and suddenly slicing her scales open and batting her around into other dummies and knocking her out of the coursel, forcing her to restart the course again. Carefully, she ducked and weaved, crawled and arches her back and limbs to pass through the smallest of gaps and openings without touching them. Once Jibril hits the midway point, the dummies were so close together and wielding blunted weapons and wooden head staffs, she had to power through them hard enough to push them aside. They swivel on springs and ball joints that by pushing into them, Jibril is thrown back and spun the dummies behind her that she had just took extra precautions to avoid and now she dancing around the swords and bladed arms trying to get through the dummies and finds it impossible to do without climbing over them. Thinking outside the box, Jibril climbs up one dummy and springs off the head and clears the tight groups of dummies and lands back into the thick of things and powers through the last grouping taking a batting to her chest and sides.
D) Draco sees the course ahead of him, he crosses his arms and lowers his head and charges into the gauntlet of dummies. The swords and bladed arms of the dummies scrape and sharply deflected off his tough scales as he tackles each dummy and shields his face from the attacks when they all swing furiously. With a battlecry, Draco doubles his efforts and crashes through the midway point where the spring dummies were and doesn't stop moving. When they got in his way, he crushed them under foot and unable to stop him from gliding over the bent over dummies bent back on their swivels by his sheer weight crushing them and once he was off them, they stayed in place broken, battered and destroyed completely. Draco reaches the end, looks back: there wasn't a gauntlet left after he broke through with broken wooden dummies littering the ground. Draco is catching up to Jibril with her 1/2 to a 1/4 of a lead on him.
7 - Vaulter
J) Jibril's lead was wasted on the gauntlet, taking her time with a shirt break and taking her time navigating the course like that ate too much of her time. The walls were easy enough since it requires her to leap up, grab a ledge and pulling herself up. But the higher and higher she went, she had to use a rope to climb a sheer twenty feet tall wall and climb over. By the time she gets to the top, Draco was there starting the course!
D) Draco looks to the right and sees Jibril struggling to get up the twenty foot wall using the rope. He grins and storms walls and jumps over one, grabs the second one, swinging his body over it and throwing his tail over, he grabs the top of the third wall, he claws his feet into the wall and climbs over time. Draco keeps this clawing and climbing walls and throwing his entire weight over the divider worked out for him until reaching the twenty foot wall, he ties the rope around his waist knowing that the rope wouldn't support his weight even if he tried. He dug his claws into the side and climbs up the wooden wall without a care for damaging the wooden course and reaches the top and meeting Jibril who was just on her way down the other side of the wall by rappelling down the wall with her rope. Draco sat on the divider, undoes his rope and swings his feet over and looks down. Jibril looks up and sees the rope going the other side: "No way!". Draco drops and using his claw on the wall and scratching a claw lining into the face of the face to slow down his descent, Draco lands on the ground with a heavy rumbling. He now has the lead!
8 - Tower
J) Draco has a short lead! Jibril drops down when she rappels and takes a running start at the wall just as Draco begins tying his rope around his waist. Jibril springs her feet six feet and runs up the side of the wall and jumps to get an extra three feet of air lead before she grabs the rope above her and starts climbing the wall using only the rope and walking up the face of the tower with the rope just there to support her lightweight frame as it would for Draco who now has a disadvantage of being behind. Jibril reaches the top and swings her body with the rope around her and catches the ledge with her foreleg and grabs the edge and rolls onto her back and carries the rope over from the opposite side and she rappels down the side of the tower she had done for the only course. She touches down on the ground and sprints for the next course.
D) Draco is already familiar with this climbing thing, he used the port holes and climbs his way up. He's a natural climber than some skinny kid with all her fancy trickery! He powers up the side of the wall faster and faster not even letting the rope do any of the work and he reaches the top of the tower and decides to do a repeat performance and drops down to the ground to maintain a close distance with Jibril. He picked up the pace, feeling the quaking of his knees bothering him, good thing they're sturdy and thick boned.
9 - Brawler
J) Jibril faced a large group of militiamen and soldier wielding practice staffs and they swarmed over Jibril, it was a chaotic ballroom dance of swings and lunges as jibril bobbed and weave through it. She gets struck in the face then hammered by another from behind her, she drops to the ground, rolls to the side and slid her body under the legs of the soldiers charging her then with a kick of her feet, pushing the chargers forward into their friends does she use her tail to leg sweep them and shove off the ground and sucker punching the ones not protected by a face mask or chest guard. Being swarmed like this and not focusing on getting through the course is throwing Jibril off as they're relentless. She plows through when she sees Draco just casually walking on through the course as he had less people fighting him, by the looks of it they decided to walk away when he approached. She doesn't care, she jumps over the brawlers and kicks them in the jewels and rolls over their backs and slides between the group of legs in front of her and coming out in the end of the course and rising to her feet. She was behind Draco!
D) Draco enters the next course and sees Jibril struggling to get through and doing everything in her ability to evade, deflect and dodging. He looks forward and see that everyone before him is very much intimidated by him. But the soldiers that did this course knows that this is what must be done and they show no fear against their opponent, unlike the militiamen who drop their weapons and backed away. Thankful these men were armed and padded down with chest armor and greaves for this particular encounter. The soldiers charged in, Draco grabs one by the head and punches him in the chest like a love tap and he gets knocked the wind out of him before Draco lets go, Draco sweeps the soldiers aside and casually brushing them aside trying his best to withhold all of his strength from tearing through their protective armor. He noticed that some of his hits broke through their chest armor and breaking their poorly crafted weapons and he picks up the pace and storms off the course at the end and they stop giving chase after him.
10 - Shuffler
J) Jibril and Draco battle head to head scaling up the final towers together. Jibril wall hopped and throwing her back against the wall to brace herself before dropping her legs down to stop her descent. Sliding down slowly and kickking herslef off one side and onto the other, she leaps three short bursts before resting her back to the wall and stopping her descent the further up she goes and the weight of gravity making it harder and harder for her to keep doing the bursts of jumps. She stops to single jumps until reach 3/4 of the way up before she must uses her arms and legs to push herself up and walking up the length of the shaft using both her hands and feet to guide her in synchronized order. Upon reaching the top, she stretched her tail up as far as she could and tickles the bell to ring several times before she slowly slides her hands and feet off to the side to drift down slowly as she begins her slow and steady descent down to the ground. She reaches the bottom but felt the weight of her own body crumbling forward. This was intense!
D) Draco started his ascension by scaling the walls with his hands and feet and clawing the wooden walls with his toes and nails to catch them and using the port holes as a way to guide him upwards at every other point of ingress before forcing himselce up against the center wall and uses the port holes more often than if he were to climb the normal way. His weight was heavy the higher and higher he goes, struggles against the gravity bearing down at him that he grits his teeth until he reaches the top and swipes the bell and claws his way down the face of the towering obstacle and drags himself all the way down and meet Jibril who was exhausted beyond measure. The two lock eyes as they catch their breaths, they stop then returned to the race.
11 - Brawler 2
J) Jibril sees the soldiers and militiamen, she slide and leaped over them, tablehopping as she had done before, but this time, they learned her tricks! They sweep the air and crouched when she went for her jumps and they dogpiled her and using their fists to beat her down and pinning her to the ground while they punch and kick her, Jibril guarded herself then punches and kicks her way out of the pile and slides underneath them and escaping narrowly while they were focused on the people trying to hold on to her. She makes it out with several bruises and heavily breathing hard.
D) Draco body tackles through the soldiers in his wake and they fell swiftly as he charged through them and they don't not hinder him.
12 - Mole
J) Jibril took to the high ground spotted the trap on the surface, she drops into the trenches and crawls underneath the tunnels and weaves her way through the pathways finding dead ends and smaller tunnels she won't fit through, she climbs up the final trench and find that it was clear to her and doesn't bother to check for punji boards until she steps on one and gets a nail puncturing through her feet and she falls to the ground with the board holding it down on the ground. Jibril yanks out the foot from the trap and quickly climbs to her feet but starts hobbling as she bleed, her adreniline pumping hard, she stops feeling the pain and the urge to keep going drives her forward.
D) Draco needs to close the distance with Jibril and takes the high ground, his heavy feet fell on bear traps and punji boards but her storms forward ignroing that a few were taken with him and the chains holding the bear trap were broken when he powerful through like a juggernaut of a beast, the punji boards that try to puncture his feet were instead bent and pegged into the ground by his weight and he quickly makes it through the course and sees Jibril on her side struggle with a board trap hurting her and causing her to lag behind. Draco takes a moment at the end of the course to remove the three bear traps locking on to his right leg and left then rips the mouths open with a grit of his teeth and then tosses them aside and continues forward with huge gashes of missing scales and blood dribbling out of his wounds.
13 - Sickle
J) Jibril is pretty sure this was meant to kill her, she's exhuasted by this point and tries to take this slowly and wraps her tail around her waist and keeping her hands on them to prevent them from coming close to getting swept up by the pendulums swinging through her path with a four feet clearing in between the blades moved by the soldiers pulling and tugging at ropes on a pulley system to make the blades move. Jibril just shakes her head at this ridiculous idea for a obstacle and she perfects her timing as she observed the blades and counts in her head and mouthing them as she steps through and counts again once through. She at the end and breaths a sigh of relief but realizes that she left a trial of blood behind her from her foot prints. She needs to keep going.
D) Draco doesn't stop moving, he sprints forward and lunges at the pendulums and rolls onto his knees at the right moent then catches a pendulum just as it comes right for him. He shove the pendulum back and he catches the next one with both his hands the shoves it back then using his swing momentum he does the same again and again for each blade as he grinds through the course and catches up with Jibril at the end and together they spring for the next stage.
14 - Foxhole
J) Jibril looks around and sees tufts of ground turned up and uprooted with faint patches of dirt revealing that there are traps here of at least hidden ones she should be aware of. She hopscotches around and over these tufts of grass and dirt and finds that it is trickery to do when she's not thinking clearly and her body is punishing itself for going at this as hard as she was. She makes a stupid move and loses her balance falls onto the ground and sinks into the foxhole that's ten feet deep and she claws her way up and out of the hole, she struggles to climb, her arms and legs are too tired to do it. She's feeling nauseous and numb by this powerful urge to drop onto her knees and give-up! Heaving hard, she musters up the strength to keep going and tries again then falls on her butt. She leaps again and catches the edge of the hole and peels off tufts of grass and throwing behind her as she wuickly grabs more and more loose grass patches that force her to keep digging at the edge in fright that she might fall in, she screams as she panics and manages to grab a root of some kind and is glad she found a spot to grab and pull herself up onto. She successfully climbs and rolls onto her back, breathing hard, she crawls on all fours when she sees Draco behind her catching up to her. She pants and laughs wildly as she tries getting up but her legs are telling her to not do that and going limp. Jibril hit her legs and fights to get up and drags herself towards the next course and then her legs muster enough strength to get up and carry her forward again.
D) Draco is exhausted, his knees are very sore and trying to buckle against him. He trips on a tuft of grass in his delirious state of exhaustion, he falls into a foxhole in the beginning but he was too big to fall in completely. Draco crawls over the hole and crawled along his belly a short distance feeling up the ground with his hands to figure out which is the safest spots to move over and letting his body glide over the ground and finding that some holes are dug too thinly to catch someone as big as he was and he dodges them by rolling onto his back or shifting his weight to either side. He steadily get to the end and see Jibril hobbling away quickly when she spotted him gaining the advantage on this course. He climbs to his feet and felt the range of numbness hit him but he isn't in the same hobbling state as Jibril is, he powers onward with his bleeding slowing down and scabbing over his missing scales.
15 - Tunneler 2
J) Jibril is relieved that this course allowed her to crawl, her legs were thankful as well when they go limp again and fell asleep on her. Using her knees and rolling on her back to slip on through the pipes and pushing her back with her feet in order to wake them back up, she keeps up this motion until she slides out of the tube and rolls backwards and lands onto her feet and she falls forward onto her elbows to catch her. This wasn't the plan, her arms are starting to feel the strain as well. She turns and sees the monkey bars: "oh no"
D) Draco hated this part, he crouches down and tries to fit himself inside the small tube opening. He rested himself when he doesn't fit the second time going in. He forces himself to go in and breaking off some of his scales that hindered his progress and breaks through and rolls onto his face and skidding along the metal interior as if he were birthed and kicking up dirt and dust. He huffs under his breath and claws his way forward not bothering to get on his knees and spreading out his weight evenly to keep him stable as he moves. Getting out out of the tube, he grabs the lip of the top, pulls himself up and stretches out his legs and cracks his back and strides forward towards the monkey bars.
16 - Monkey Bars 2
J) Jibril stretched and grabbed the bars, she was too tired to keep this up while walking and her arms were too worn out from climbing and scaling walls, now she has to traverse this chasm. What a damn break she's got. She starts off slowly and pacing herself better learning that the short bursts only wear her out more and quickly, the strain of her legs is lost on her as the weight is all in her lower body causing them to go numb and stiff with her tail dangling freely. Jibril is sweating, she shouldn't be able to sweat! Her snake oil pours out of her soft scales and coat her body in a thick mucus like substance and her breath is moist and heavy, hands grabbing and releasing with the swinging motion of her limp body carrying her. At the next set, she holds the last bar of her previous set and then swing her body forward and catches the first bar of the next set and does the skipping of the next bar using both hands instead of releasing one hand and catching with the other. This steady pattern helps Jibril reach the end and she flings herself far enough until she fell flat on her back. She groans weakly.
D) Draco has maintain the most stable of paces and even though his slow start and powerful strength has pushed him this far, he doesn't seem to stop. He takes his time going over the chasm taking each bar slowly and deliberately and cautious checking his grip before moving onto the next and slowly keeping up a better pacing until his adrenaline kicks in and he goes faster and faster. He skips every third bar and grabs the forth with his reach making an impressive stride and his weight matching his grip strength, he doesn't struggle as he holds his own on this course and making it to the end without incident. He breaks off into a run.
17 - Rabbit
J) At this point Jibril doesn't have the energy to care how long it takes her to go through this part, she just walked onto the wooden posts and lightly hops from side to the side, feeling out the posts before settling all her weight onto one then pushing off. She balanced herself to the next and then another, she broke a post but hops quickly over on the the nearest post and both her feet slide down the shafts to two opposing posts into a full leg split. Jibril shimmies up on the post before her and cpoils her tail on the rear post behind herself and she climbs up and slithers on top of the rear post her tail is on and sets herself onto it. She turns and goes further and springs off her post then lands over the large gap between herself and the finishing line of this particular course. She lands on her feet and groans in pain as her foot was killing her for the Punji board she noticed that she has a nail sticking out of it. Great!
D) Draco walks normally onto the wooden posts and hopes they support his weight given everything else hasn't, surprisingly they do with how buried deep beneath the ground they were with a deeper pit than the surface they reached. there were rocks throw in here with the posts to add support, hmm, god to know. Draco stride sna stretches out his legs and climbs up and over the posts and carefully supporting his weight with his tail learning from Jibril's example. He reaches the end without incident and carefully drop his chest forward onto the ground and crawls up further so he doesn't slide into the deep pit and has to reset the course for himself.
18 - Squirrel
J) Jibril was already hobbling and exhausted, she sees Draco powering upward and onward at this point. But good gods, these people are insane! The firing squad of machine gunners holding up their rifles at them and firing lines of rubber bullets that bounce of them hurts like the nine circles hell! Jibril gets hit many many times before realizing she need to sprint through this but this thought only got her shot more. She drops to the ground after getting struck in the face with a rubber round and just crawls on her belly, it seems like she gets better results from it anyway but also to protect her belly full of eggs. She keeps gettin stray shots to the kidneys which makes she scream out in pain and yelling profanity at the squads, it seemed to make them aim more accurately at her as they keep firing off hailstorm of bullets echoing around the Crucible and mountain range. She reaches the end and climbs to her knees and jumps onto her feet and jogs towards the next course.
D) Draco isn't bothered by the rubber bullets rippling off his scale and he just takes every round like brittle bullets from toy guns hitting him and falling to the ground. He walks on through without a problem but does take a few stray shot to the softer parts of his body that cause him some measure of pain like his groin and ass, but he's learned to fight through the pain. He reached the end and looks back to see Jibril struggling to get through this course and takes the lead advantage.
19 - Trap
J) Jibril jogs behind Draco who has the lead, she noticed the course they're on are just small annoying traps and tripwires. She hops over them and vaulted over the larger ones with a running start and then picks up the speed and breaks into a full-on sprint until she battling Draco as the approach the end of the course.
D) Draco already has the lead against Jibril, he doesn't hold back and starts running and storming over the traps and hopping to the side to avoid the larger ones and not losing his momentum while doing so. Draco sees Jibril and they race toward the end of the course.
20 - Sprinter
J & D) This was it! This was the last stretch of the Crucible and they were putting the of their stamina into the last push of the course! Jibril and Draco have come a long way for see the finishing line, battling neck and neck coming toward Shimbala waving one of their flags with all the people screaming on top of their lungs and cheering them on for the finale they've been waiting for. Panting, hearts racing, their hearts beating against the throats, ears and heads ringing loudly, their heads are drowned out by blinding white noise and the cold air of the night sweeping over the region and hitting both of them hard in their exposed bodies. Dry heaving and exhausted beyond belief, they keep pushing their advances and sprinting all the way towards the finishing line. But as it happens, everyone was shocked by the results of the race: it was a draw
"Jibril tells shambala to carry her to the medic or healer since she knows she won't be able to move for a while she then drop to the floor breathing heavily but god was that difficult am surprise the people who took this obstacle are even alive or moving but shit my body hurt soooooo much right now
Jibril slides across the ground, angled her head, face first into the ground, rolled several times before unfolding herself in the grass with her arms, body spread out and she lies on her back. Draco collapses on the ground after the finish line and groans. Shimbala and the others clapped and laughing. "It was a tie! That's never happened before" Shimbala announced, "We got a first aid crew here, we'll get you two fixed up"
Jibril reaches up and grabs Shimbala's leg and weakly asking: "Can you carry me? I can't move" Jibril drops back onto the ground breathing heavily, clinging desperately to the cool air of night.
Shimbala just laughs, she calls over a few soldiers wearing a red cross on their armbands signifying them as medics. The medics brought over a stretcher and the two carried Jibril over to a wagon, Draco is dragged over by the whole squad that he fought on over to the same medic wagon. Shimbala hops onto the back of the medic wagon pulled by two prairie ponies. The medics removed the rusty nail in Jibril's foot, some black powdery substance was removed from a papyrus wrapper and applied, very strong alcohol was applied to clean, pure white bandages. The medic working on Jibril's foot was a long haired blond man with a androgynous face that he could pass for a man or a woman, no facial hair at all. He was very handsome and reassuring every step of the way, telling Jibril what he's doing and why. He breaks out a vial and a syringe that catches Jibril by surprise, the medic grabs her leg and the other medic holds her arms.
"If you don't get the shot, you're going to get gangrene and a week later after it rots off, then it'll be too late to save it. We'll have to amputate your leg before the infection reaches your heart. Do you understand?"
Jibril nods her head and groans reluctantly. She winces when the medic fills the syringe and empties the pump within into the wound itself before finishing up the bandage and keeping pressure on the foot. Medic goes over Jibril's arms and legs, she discovered that she had scrapes and bruises everywhere with discoloration in her scales where blood vessels fill the gaps in the skin to darken torn tissue. Medic also resets Jibril's nose and provides her with a nasal splint then plugs up her nose with torn cotton balls to stop the bleeding. Further inspection, Jibril sprung her ankles going through the traps and tripping, the falls she took from the towers really did a number on her lower half. Her back seizes up when she tries to move but it screams for her not to move as the adrenaline wears off and all of Jibril's aches and pains shoot up Internal alarms.
With her being in so much exhausting pain, she turns back to Shimbala who is enjoying every facial expression Jibril was making: "Gods, was that difficult! I'm surprised that anyone took on the Crucible and lived much less standing!"
"We consider it a sort of Rite of Passage" Shimbala snickered, "You did good, Jibril, you did real good. Better than most on their first try."
"Shit, my body hurts soooooooo much!" Jibril cries out with her twitching causing her to since in pain. Shimbala slap Jibril in the shoulder, Jibril yelps in pain and hisses at her. "Awww, don't be such a hissy baby!" Shimbala teases, "You've earned the respect of our servicemen and Militia today, be proud of that."
"Hard to be proud of something when she doesn't know what it means" Draco says loudly, "This still changes nothing"
"She stayed ahead of you and took the lead-" Shimbala spoke before cut off by Draco's objection.
"And I took the lead in the other half of the track. What of it? It's a draw." Draco interrupts.
"At least give her the benefit of standing toe-to-toe with you" Shimbala jabs, stirring Draco to growl in pain and annoyance.
"That might as well be admitting to defeat when I did not lose"
"But you didn't win either"
"Will both of you shut up" The medic shouts, "Neither of it matters. A civilian getting hurt on our watch would bring the Prez down here and have all our heads on platters. Just be grateful neither of you aren't dead or crippled for the rest of your life."
The Medic tends to Draco's missing scales and bandaging the bear traps tooth marks and pockets. Draco lays his head back and sighs at the man: "Who are you?"
"Corporal Alistair Alabaster, sir. Third Medical Corp squad, assigned to Specter Company." The Medic answered.
"Corporal? When did that happen, I don't recall anyone telling me we were getting new recruits!" Shimbala protests.
"Medical Corp doesn't answer to Military Command, it answers to the Commander of Field Operations and that's Commander Whenry Uma."
"She's a commander too!?" Shimbala screams, "What the hell! I spent months training my ass off and SHE gets command over her own Corp!?"
Jibril reaches up and grabs Shimbala's leg and weakly asking: "Can you carry me? I can't move" Jibril drops back onto the ground breathing heavily, clinging desperately to the cool air of night.
Shimbala just laughs, she calls over a few soldiers wearing a red cross on their armbands signifying them as medics. The medics brought over a stretcher and the two carried Jibril over to a wagon, Draco is dragged over by the whole squad that he fought on over to the same medic wagon. Shimbala hops onto the back of the medic wagon pulled by two prairie ponies. The medics removed the rusty nail in Jibril's foot, some black powdery substance was removed from a papyrus wrapper and applied, very strong alcohol was applied to clean, pure white bandages. The medic working on Jibril's foot was a long haired blond man with a androgynous face that he could pass for a man or a woman, no facial hair at all. He was very handsome and reassuring every step of the way, telling Jibril what he's doing and why. He breaks out a vial and a syringe that catches Jibril by surprise, the medic grabs her leg and the other medic holds her arms.
"If you don't get the shot, you're going to get gangrene and a week later after it rots off, then it'll be too late to save it. We'll have to amputate your leg before the infection reaches your heart. Do you understand?"
Jibril nods her head and groans reluctantly. She winces when the medic fills the syringe and empties the pump within into the wound itself before finishing up the bandage and keeping pressure on the foot. Medic goes over Jibril's arms and legs, she discovered that she had scrapes and bruises everywhere with discoloration in her scales where blood vessels fill the gaps in the skin to darken torn tissue. Medic also resets Jibril's nose and provides her with a nasal splint then plugs up her nose with torn cotton balls to stop the bleeding. Further inspection, Jibril sprung her ankles going through the traps and tripping, the falls she took from the towers really did a number on her lower half. Her back seizes up when she tries to move but it screams for her not to move as the adrenaline wears off and all of Jibril's aches and pains shoot up Internal alarms.
With her being in so much exhausting pain, she turns back to Shimbala who is enjoying every facial expression Jibril was making: "Gods, was that difficult! I'm surprised that anyone took on the Crucible and lived much less standing!"
"We consider it a sort of Rite of Passage" Shimbala snickered, "You did good, Jibril, you did real good. Better than most on their first try."
"Shit, my body hurts soooooooo much!" Jibril cries out with her twitching causing her to since in pain. Shimbala slap Jibril in the shoulder, Jibril yelps in pain and hisses at her. "Awww, don't be such a hissy baby!" Shimbala teases, "You've earned the respect of our servicemen and Militia today, be proud of that."
"Hard to be proud of something when she doesn't know what it means" Draco says loudly, "This still changes nothing"
"She stayed ahead of you and took the lead-" Shimbala spoke before cut off by Draco's objection.
"And I took the lead in the other half of the track. What of it? It's a draw." Draco interrupts.
"At least give her the benefit of standing toe-to-toe with you" Shimbala jabs, stirring Draco to growl in pain and annoyance.
"That might as well be admitting to defeat when I did not lose"
"But you didn't win either"
"Will both of you shut up" The medic shouts, "Neither of it matters. A civilian getting hurt on our watch would bring the Prez down here and have all our heads on platters. Just be grateful neither of you aren't dead or crippled for the rest of your life."
The Medic tends to Draco's missing scales and bandaging the bear traps tooth marks and pockets. Draco lays his head back and sighs at the man: "Who are you?"
"Corporal Alistair Alabaster, sir. Third Medical Corp squad, assigned to Specter Company." The Medic answered.
"Corporal? When did that happen, I don't recall anyone telling me we were getting new recruits!" Shimbala protests.
"Medical Corp doesn't answer to Military Command, it answers to the Commander of Field Operations and that's Commander Whenry Uma."
"She's a commander too!?" Shimbala screams, "What the hell! I spent months training my ass off and SHE gets command over her own Corp!?"