Gauntlet time!!!
This is our chance! We defeat this douche and get an elven noble title and access to all those hot elven girls!! Then we can reclaim the “Glittering Caves” (the glittering caves is an imaginary place made up by some of the voices in an early chapter and has nothing to do with Rocklod)
with an army of hot elven archers, we'll probably have to clad them with some good ol’ dwarven steel before that!!(there might be some flaws with this part)
If they ask about the gauntlet we can say it's the epic weapon of the Lord of the Glittering Caves!!
The Lord of the Glittering Caves shall now also be the Courtloungerpimp of hot-elf-girl-town!!Has anyone considered that the gauntlet makes for a rather demonic looking light show? Also note that it won't heal us from big wounds, like getting stabbed in the torso. Also note that scared-to-death elves aren't liable to heal us either.Use the Gauntlet!!!
There might be political undercurrents here. Before we answer, let's politely ask the girl how she would feel about us killing this arrogant asshole.
USE THE DAMN GAUNTLENT LIKE A MAN!
In the end the voices arguing for the use of the gauntlet overpower the rest and it is decided upon. However before accepting the challenge I quickly managed to ask Sehdul about her feelings towards the fight ahead of us.
-As a dwarf I can’t back down from a challenge like this…I hope you understand that this is something that I have to do…
-What are you talking about? -I just want to know how you’d feel towards me going through with this…
-No don’t, get away while you have a chance! It’s suicide!-No I meant about me killing your brother…
-That…Don’t you understand!? He can’t touch you unless you challenge him!-I guess I won’t get your consent then… it burdens me to know however it shallt not dull my resolve.
-You’re insane!-Heh, perhaps…
I reach into my bag and turn towards the Courtlounger…
-All right you pompous turd biscuit, it’s on!
He seems to be confused and instead of a proper response he simply grins maliciously followed by a swift nod.
The people outside the city go wild; the more revered people begin vacating the premises while commoners stream in from the sides. Soon a huge half circle of elves had formed around them.
Fuck, I was hoping to fight without an audience, the gauntlet might backfire in a situation like this…
Ah well…too late now.
I pull out my gauntlet as he unsheathes his sword, the air around us grows heavy and the crowd goes quiet.
As I put it on I instantly sense that familiar feeling of my core dropping in temperature, and the excruciating pain that follows quickly thereafter. Then the pain remains the same but I start to feel an increasing distance towards it, like an item left behind on the surface after a dive… I’m suddently filled with an intense and unexplainable anger…or perhaps a bloodlust one might call it…it too so very distant…
In a complete rage I throw myself towards the elf swinging my axe wildly at him, he seems surprised by the intensity of my attack and is instantly put on the defensive, the crowd gasps for air. But even though my strikes were both fast and strong he cunningly dodged every single attempt. With every strike my anger grew but no matter how furiously I fought I failed to land a single hit. Then something strange happened, while the gauntlet had at earlier times plunged me deeper into the darkness as the fight went on this time something was strange, as I kept fighting instead of sinking I soon felt myself once again reaching closer to this formless entity of bloodlust and pain. Soon without realizing it I had fully regained control of my own actions and found myself facing the elf. The elf which had been casually dodging for quite a while now probably saw this as me getting tired all of sudden and quickly lashed out towards me. His slash was extremely fast, my eyes couldn’t keep up with the blade at all and blood was drawn followed by loud cheering.
-That’s all you got little man!? -…
The next part of the fight was atrocious, not only had the gauntlet stopped working but the elf was a far better fighter than what we had anticipated. His fighting style did not match his bold words at all and he fought with extreme caution even while at an advantage. Always standing at a safe distance and only moving in to strike while having a positional advantage.
At first I tried to stay on the defensive but I repeatedly kept getting cut on my hands and arms by his swift blade while trying to parry. The offensive strategy went even worse as he simply dodged every strike I made only to counterattack in the blink of an eye, the second I manage to bring up my guard he’d already backed off. Slash after slash he kept cutting me up, putting up a great show for the audience I guess…The only saving grace would be that he fought with a wooden sword, a bloody toy for Armok’s sake! But there’s a limit to how many cuts I can take, at some point I’ll just bleed out…
In my most desperate of moments I decided to accept advice from the paranoid one, whom had devised a battle tactic around the notion of throwing metal coins at the elf to confuse it. It’s cheap but I decided to do it anyway and threw my last coins at him, which he quickly just swiped out of the air with his blade. I even tried to bring out my knife and dual wield aginst him however due to heavy bloodloss my moves were sluggish. This might be hopless...
We should just bail Nerin! Concede and run for it! Fuck this honor stuff!
No come-on we can't let a chance like this slip away!
I agree the elf insulted us, he must pay for his crimes!
Nerin's life is at stake here!
I'd rather die than live in shame!
Then do you have any idea for how we could turn this around then?
This would've been much easier if the gauntlet didn't fuck up...but I'm sure we'll come up with something soon!
What are you talking about? Haven't you noticed that this fucker is so ridiculously fast that he’s practically beating us up with a stick!
I…I don’t know! Stop being so negative!
Well I’d love to hear a more positive viewpoint on us dying from fucking blood loss!
Well the question is really whether to concede the duel and avoid fighting entirely or somehow circumvent the elf’s speed advantage. Either option would however require some clever thinking and perhaps a bit of luck.
...or something completly different beyond the limitations of my narrow mindset. (Just when you think that you've taken every aspect into account some idiot decides to kidnap a vague acquaintance in a stolen coffin
)