"Suit yourself." Nickademus said, though a certain note in his voice showed some degree of pride at Dankei's willingness to fight.
"Another fight!" He shouted, to someone somewhere, and stepped to the side of the arena instead of retreating back into his shade.

Moments later, the trap door slowly creaked back up from bellow. This time it held a pile of rubble in its center and a cloud of silvery haze hung over it, shifting of its own accord in a non-existent wind.

Battle has started! -


Turns are as follow -
Dankei (4/16 HP)(8/16 MP)(E13)(2 Con, 9 Str, 10 Dex. 9 turns remaining!)
Unidentified haze (-6/20 HP)(16/16 MP)(F13)
Pile of rubble (10/10 HP)(I13)(Entangled!)

Dankei's turn! -
"What the hell is that?" Dankei asked to himself. Thinking he'd need more time to devise a strategy, he casted Entangle and moved back as far as his speed would allow him (E13), all the while trying to identify the monster. (Knowledge)

Vines shot through the sandy earth near I13 and entangled themselves around the pile at that location, successfully defeating any attempt it would make at moving!
The vines also tried to grab at the silvery haze above the pile, but they simply passed through the cloud, barely disturbing it!

During that time, Dankei racked his mind for the origins of the monster, but couldn't find anything in his past experiences that came close, except maybe the Lightning Figments, yet they were a real cloud, whereas the thing he faced now was much more... see-through. While he moved, he had the eerie impression that eyes materialized in the fog to watch him.

Haze's turn! -

The Haze hovered in place for a few seconds while Dankei moved past it. Suddenly, part of the haze condensed and a shape took form it, being human-looking enough except that it was made of smoke! Its hands moved in a hypnotic pattern and Dankei started feeling his eyes getting heavy as he fell under a sleep spell!

Dankei fell asleep!

Dankei's turn! -

Luckily for him, however, Dankei quickly shrugged off the magical fatigue and woke up!

"What the..?" Dankei said, finding himself lying in the desert sands of Caerham. He looked at the haze, having no idea what it was whatsoever, but guessed it was probably some form of air elemental. He got up and decided to cast a Heat Beam on the haze, to see if it could be damaged by magic.

Dankei's beam shot right at the haze and started tearing some of it up, dealing 5 damage! His cairnstone ring then glowed and his beam blazed hotter for a short moment, dealing an extra 1 damage!
As the haze was being scorched by the heat beam, Dankei thought he saw a face materialize from the smoke, resembling a five-year-old's, crying out in silent pain!

Haze's turn! -

The face Dankei saw disappeared back into the Haze's smoke and immediately the mass quickly drifted up to Dankei (F13) as if carried by a gust of wind! As it neared, a longsword materialized from the fog and sliced upwards at Dankei!

Dankei quickly tried to dodge to the side, as soon as he saw the longsword materializing.

Dankei darted to the side just as the longsword swished past him and dematerialized again!

Dankei's turn! -
Dankei went into a great Rage, thinking this air-head kid should've picked someone else to mess around with, and slashed at the punk with his Naginata!

Dankei's temple-vein pulsed and visibly grew, along with others on his body, as his rage took hold, lowering his defenses but enhancing his power and speed!

Dankei's Con dropped to 2!
Dankei's Str grew to 9, Dex to 10! 9 turns remain before his temper cools down!

With rage heating his blood, Dankei lashed out with his naginata at the cloud... and passed right through it! The force of his swing brought him off balance and he fell forwards, face first, into the sand! Pure luck kept him from loosing his sword in the process!

Dankei is prone!

Haze's turn! -

Seeing this as its chance, the longsword re-materialized from the Haze's smoke as well as two arms, and stabbed downwards at Dankei!

Dankei tumbled backwards, rolling over his shoulder and hoping to get up in the process.

Dankei's feeble attempt at reversing his fall failed miserably, which he realized when he felt the coldness of the sword bite through his left arm and leg, dealing 9 damage! He then felt an otherworldly pain that surged through him, dealing another 3 damage, and the sword dissipated back into the haze!

Dankei's turn! -
Not feeling very good, Dankei hoped to finish this with an Empowered Heat Beam, thinking that tactic hadn't really failed him so far...

Dankei's beam burned strong and almost completely engulfed the Haze, scorching ethereal smoke until it was no-more, dealing 20 damage! A wail escaped a small wisp of smoke and then it disappeared into a gust of wind.

Battle is over!
Dankei won!
He gains 960 Exp and a level!

---

"Way to make a finish, kid." Nickademus said one he declared the battle as over, rubbing his eyes to get the residual beam out of his sight.

"Just a minute." Dankei got up, and mercilessly stood before the entangled pile of rubble, hoping to blast it away with another Empowered Heat Beam.

Dankei sent his empowered beam blasting away before Nickademus could stop him, rendering the pile of rubble, which ended up being equipment, into a pile of useless twisted iron and ash! Three weapons and a suit of armor had been beneath some of the junk as well as a bag of gold which had fused together in the heat. Atop the pile was a small statuette in the form of a fellram, which had cleanly broken in two.
"So you guys'll be the cannon fodde... uhm... front liners... and I'll support you from the back!" Tiae's voice said from within the charred masses.

Nickademus stood where he had been left, shaking his head at Dankei's eagerness to burn stuff, but stayed silent.

"Well, that was kind of lame." Dankei said, watching the smoldering pile of steel and gold. He stepped closer and started Heating the gold, in an attempt to melt it. He knew gold had a lower melting point than iron, so he figured he should be able to separate some of it. "What was this stuff anyway?"

"I said the battle was over..." Nickademus ventured as he walked up to Dankei and his pile of charred stuff. He stood to the side as he talked, so as not to deprive the man from any sunlight.
"That's the ghost's belongings.. or what's left of them, anyway. I couldn't put them in a safer place cause it was still attached to its stuff. Especially this guy." He said and knelt to pick up the two pieces of the fellram statuette with his gauntleted hand, impervious to the heat spell Dankei had cast on the pile.

As Nickademus spoke, the gold Dankei was heating up got hot enough to melt and flow out from beneath the pile, forming a rather large pool at his feet in the sand. If he had to estimate the number of coins needed to make such a pool, Dankei would say somewhere near 500 of them.

"What's those then?" Dankei asked, finding it rather weird that the referee decided to stack up the ghost's belonging to look like a pile of rubble, in the middle of a battlefield. Apperently this wasn't all that much of a safe place. Dankei in the meantime searched the pile for anything else he could melt loose from the pile. He hoped that he'd only melted away one of two things, and that anything else might simply be loosely attached to the rest of it with some melted iron, which he might loosen off again. (Search)

Dankei dug into the pile and found a butt-load of stuff which had belonged to the ghost, unscratched nor affected by the heat. He even found Tiae's doll, oddly enough.

Stashed in the sand, totally un-burned or anything of the sort, I swears!
Longsword + 2 (5 Atk, 5 Def)
Light Mace (3 Atk, 2 Def)
Katana (5 Atk, 3 Def, 2 Int, -1 Dex)
Leather Armor (2 Def, -1 Spd)
Rations x 3
Angel Wing Earrings (2 HP)
Recall Pendant
Collectible Doll, Tiae (1 Car, When the belly is pressed, it says "So you guys'll be the cannon fodde... uhm... front liners... and I'll support you from the back!" with Tiae's voice)
455 GP

"Huh, looks like stuff survived. Weird, huh?" Nickademus said, looking more than a little sheepish and quickly got up and left to hide in his alcove to think on what he'd done.

Dankei was quite happy to see he could still get all this stuff out of the pile. He took the lot of it, even though he thought he could only really use the earrings. So he put the Angel Wings Earrings in his ear, and hung the Recall Pendant around his neck, just for safety. He figured he could always sell the other stuff. The longsword especially seemed quite fancy.

Dankei heard footsteps behind him as Nickademus returned from where he was sulking, armed with a shovel.
"Sorry kid, but I gotta burry this now, Lady's last requests and all." He said and started digging a hole then and there. "You can keep the doll, though." He added after a few shovelfuls, then kept on digging.

Dankei took the doll, and stashed it in his sack. "Happy diggings." He said to Nickademus, and left the arena.

"Right." Was all that Nickademus said, and returned to his job.

---

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