ja_koniga

The orc was huge, and had a huge battle axe, too much for a vulnerable mortal girl, at least most of the people thought that. But they knew that Drelithila had an odd tendency to win even against much stronger opponents. They placed their bets, and waited until the fight began. The huge, the old chieftain for the Bonebreaker tribe tried to circle around the girl. Both of them knew that tactics. The girl tried to avoid it, and stepped back several times, and after a few minutes her back has hit the wall. She was happy with that, even if the situation limited her movement, so offered a small advantage to the stronger orc, she knew how to use it on her advantage. She launched a few insults at the orc, who was flied into a rage shortly and charged. Drelithila stepped out of the way at the last moment and the axe hit the wooden wall of arena. The hard wooden wall had almost no chance against the blow, and several small splinters of wood broke off after the blow. Some of them hit the girl, and some particles tore her clothes and scratched her fine skin. The scratches didn’t hurt so badly, but a splinter hit her hard, and stuck in a deeper scratch at her left side. She knew that the pain can slow her down so she should try to finish this fight as soon as possible.

She barely avoided the next blow, and tried to dance away from the huge orc. The orc stormed after her, and the dirt of the arena made a small cloud around them. Drelithila knew, that even this can help the orc, because he has better senses, and the cloud can blind her, and the dirt can make the pain worse. So she tried to increase the distance between her and the orc. She was too slow, she avoided the blow, but the huge axe still hit her torn clothes, and the energy of the blow pulled her back sharply. She escaped it without any visible wound, but the pain was severe, her torn rags exposed most of her body, but slowed down her movement badly, she almost given up.

The situation was severe enough, but she had a chance, and kicked at the orc, and hit him hard at his thigh. The orc has stepped back, and that provided enough time for Drelithila to escape from his immediate vicinity. She removed her tattered clothes, they did nothing good for her, but slowed down her movement, and given too much opportunities for her opponent. The guests at the arena was surprised by the situation, but enjoyed the sight of her naked body. She was beautiful in her own way, but was different from the innocent girls of the old kingdom. She was a living symbol of lust in the Arena even before this time, but from now her position was absolute. 

She enjoyed the situation for a few moments, but turned her back to the orc, and slalomed back to a wall. At the worst possible moment the orc thrown his axe. He missed the girl again, but the girl had no chance to avoid the numerous splinters of wood, as the axe hit the wall. She was lucky, because no splinters hit her eyes, but her face, her body and thighs became full of scratches and small thorns in a second. For a few moments she was shivered in pain, and almost dropped to the ground, but she has noticed her first real advantage: She was between the orc and his axe. Now she had longer reach with her blade, and the orc was unarmed, and had little practice in fighting unarmed against armed opponents. Drelithila used the situation to her advantage, and with each cut, the orc weakened, his armor damaged, and the tattered straps of leather became more hindrance than protection in just a few minutes. Drelithila knew that the orc is doomed but enjoyed to play with him, and take some revenge. That was a big mistake from her, because the orc had a lucky opportunity, and punched her. As the orc hit her just bellow the breast she stumbled with pain, and the orc used the opportunity to reach his axe.

Drelithila slowed by the pain yet again, and this time she had a hard time avoiding the blows, without stepping too far from the orc, and letting him grab his weapon. They exchanged more and more blows, and both of them were exhausted, but the guests of the arena enjoyed the long and balanced fight, and enjoyed the seeing Drelithila naked and vulnerable. They enjoyed, even when they knew, it can be her last combat. The woman enjoyed even more because of this. She was as hated by women, as popular she was among the men, but both women and men visited her fights, and she was happy with the money she got from everyone. But this time she had to fight for her life. With a few lucky cuts, she won the fight, but she was less than happy with that. Now everyone seen how vulnerable she is, and this orc exposed the weak spots in her tactics, and she knew, more skilled opponents will use that against her, so she has to escape as quickly as possible, without using and abusing all the advantage the arena can offer to her. So she set her escape plan in motion just after the combat.

Background: While Dance of Blades story cycle is designed to explain varius things about combat in fantasy roleplaying games (in this case hit points) this story is linked to our Barony line of stories, and maybe later it will be linked with other stories on the site, and also this storyline has a few other stories in it.

System: This story is mostly an example about how to roleplay combat with given characters, how to explain low hitpoint damage from a greataxe, and how to explain why some characters would survive multiple hits from a such dangerous weapon. Indirect hits, hard parries, exhaustion, the role of equipment, clothes and armor are all examples about this. Of course you might ask: Why cure light wounds don't heal most of the minor wounds, if we speak about a high level warrior with more hitpoints, or how to describe falling damage, or what to do with certain scenarios, etc. this is why we have a whole storyline for explanation. Most of these would work well with any system with hit points, or realy strong damage reduction chances, including d20 system.