Turn ThreeAction: Dash the final distance through the portal, avoiding my slower, duller and less beauteous competitors...and commence stop, drop and face roll on the other side, avoiding all competitors in the process. Fire is horrible for my complexion, like really, oh my Gods.
Yards – no feet! No, inches! – away from the portal and safety, the lovely and burning Lady Foxglove Vainglorious III
…stops, drops, and curls up into a ball screaming about her complexion!
She sets herself further on fire!
Rolling around like some kind of foolish feeling burning ball of scream, she rolls against the edge of the portal and comes to a halt.
She sets the portal on fire!
Wound Acquired: Lady Foxglove Vainglorious III:
Burning Knees!Guzzle mana potion. Activate Gee Whiz, and double run to the end.
As the beauteous ball of Lady Foxglove writhes about on the floor, Whiz the Wizard, halfway back in the chasing pack, whips out a flask of murky looking liquid, and guzzles it down!
He mumbles some mumbojumbo!
…He dashes off at incredible speed!
…Twice!
He leaps through the burning portal,
…and doesn’t even catch on fire!
OH GODS RUN MY BLOODY ARSE IS ON FIRE OH GOD OH GOD
Unlike Lenneth Hardy, upon whom the Gods break wind with great malevolence. Aflame on the arm, aburning on the broken arse,
…he suddenly panics, runs blindly forwards, and trips under the great hulking feet of Albert the Fire-Breathing Cow-Demon!
Wriggling about in broken-arsed pain, Lenneth fails to avoid the stomping hooves:
…she breaks his guts!
Wound Acquired: Lenneth Hardy:
Broken Guts!…Albert begins squealing in demony agony. Her hooves are on fire! She spins round in a terrible wail, breathing fire at everyone in range.
…Beral, for once not ignored, narrowly jumps aside from a burst of cow-flame. Mehda doesn’t even notice anything wrong. Derm nonchalantly stops the advancing wall of flame with his powerful finger. Blarg stares in horror as his mount turns her head, stares him in the eye, and spews flames at it!
She misses and sets his hairy chest alight instead!
Wound Acquired: Blarg Gargleson:
Burning Chest Hair!Still spinning, Albert returns to her original orientation and, indeed, her original victim. She sets Lenneth Hardy’s hairy chest alight too!
Wound Acquired: Lenneth Hardy:
Burning Chest Hair!Luck curse + instantify item on the poor sap that's on the same height as me and hope that it actually works out and curse Foxglove somehow ignoring -2 penalties for running. Then get back to sprinting like a champ, and perhaps tripping a person or two.
Mehda Correa turns to Beral Siltmill dodging about next to her,
…giggles in a very sinister manner,
…and dashes off!
…Only catching fire a tiny bit as she does so, she leaps through the portal and into Istria!
Wound Acquired: Mehda Correa:
Burning Face!Eyes on the prize, baby! Not Lady III, either. Run for that portal. Try to trip Mehda as I pass.
With a sudden feeling of having used all his luck avoiding the blast of the cow-demon, Beral Siltmill, noticing Mehda Correa fly off in a fit of evil laugh,
…stumbles, nearly trips, and staggers drunkenly towards the portal.
He has a distinct feeling that if only he could have caught and tripped her she would have suffered a hideous hideous injury.
…Probably something roughly like a severed right leg.
Actually, you know what? Screw talking. Just run through the portal as fast as reasonably possible, stopping for absolutely nothing on the way. There is too much to lose to do anything else. This messenger must deliver, whether it's rainy, sunny or a raining horrible death.
”Crikey!” thinks Gervedder Vietzo, hitherto renowned for being bright, at least in the colourful sense, and loud,
”I say! Let’s shut up and bloody run, what?!”…And he does! Incredibly fast! Straight through the portal, and straight through the burning ring of fire!
…His entire upper body is wreathed in flame! He can feel his luminous garb melt to his skin! It’s quite painful! But he barely feels the pain through the joy of victory as he lands on the other side!
Wound Acquired: Gervedder Vietzo:
Burning Body!Bukkar runs as fast as he can for the portal. If anyone gets in his way (he's intent on running, not doing this), Lightning Fist them and keep running.
Not quite so fast is Bukkar Crangrom, the Mage of Rage.
…He dashes along at a steady pace and, finding Richard Haze in his way, smashes him in the back of the head with his Fist of Lightning!
…The lightning arcs down and, oddly, fractures Richard’s leg!
Wound Acquired: Richard Haze:
Fractured Left Leg!He falls to the floor with a dull thud as another lick of lightning arcs forwards onto the burning Blarg Gargleson.
…It sizzles out just before it reaches his back.
Hike up my skirt and RUN! Shove off a Black hole at a nearby competitor.
REDACTED FOR REDACTEDNESS
Derm can see victory within his grasp. He has only twenty one metres to run!
…He runs twenty metres!
Out of breath, he turns and busts off a miniature black hole at a nearby competitor.
…It wafts just past Nedenir Adaros’ guts!
Just run toward the portal as fast as I can
Lying on the ground with a fractured leg, Richard Haze nevertheless tries to run as fast as he can towards the portal.
…He gets to his feet and collapses backwards with the pain!
Blarg unleashes Albert's until now hidden move: The run of speed! Keep breathing fire everywhere to propel self forward!
Blarg, so recently the victim of his mount’s burning breath, tries to push Albert forward.
…He fails! Albert stays where she is, resolutely trying to trample Lenneth a bit more, before suddenly looking up and realising she could breathe fire on everyone a bit more instead!
…Unfortunately for all the competitors who aren’t Lenneth, Blarg, or Richard, she can’t quite be bothered.
Keep running. Avoid death, maiming and terrible shit and run for the portal.
…Not too far from the portal, Nedenir is lost. He can see nothing but hair before him! He turns round in a circle a few times before sitting down, feeling tired and confused and vaguely wondering if there might be snakes about on the floor.
Finally, rushing up to sneak attack one of the frontrunners, the wardrobe is interrupted mid-shuffle by the shooting jets of Cow-Demon fire from earlier in the turn.
He bites Albert on the back leg!
…He totally misses!
Where one set of initials or one dash equals 5 metres.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - BC - - NA - - LF
BURNING DESK - - - - - - - - RH - BG LH - - - - BS - - D PORTAL
Tackov Cedtry is through. Whiz is through. Mehda Correa is through. Gervedder Vietzo is through. That makes four, and leaves two spots.
Lady Foxglove Vainglorious III and Derm are both one metre away from the portal.
Next is Nedenir Adaros and Beral, then Bukkar. Lenneth is just ahead of Blarg who is still on Albert the Cow-Demon. Richard is last and has a fractured leg.
Every turn is a desperate battle between me and the exclamation marks, and the exclamation marks are winning.
I’ll try my best but don’t necessarily expect the next turn till Monday.
Edit: It has been brought to my attention that I have not achieved complete success in being more serious/less silly (particularly in this turn). I will try to remember my original aim a little better once the prelude is over.