Halia Half-Elven vs. Annie the Arcanopath

It was a windy day in the grand capitol city of Enferia, the sands of the arena whipping up and giving a much-appreciated breeze to the otherwise warm day. The announcer dabbed at his brow lightly with an embroidered kerchief before addressing the crowd.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the arena!" the man bellowed. "We have another wonderful treat for you all today, guaranteed to entertain and excite!"

The gates opened, and two women stepped out onto opposite ends of the battlefield. The two feminine figures were met with cheers, the crowd eager to see what the two would bring to the show.

"First, we have a returning fighter. You all know and love our trickster, let's hear it for Halia Half-Elven!" the announcer cried, the crowd cheering in response.

"And her opponent? A newcomer to our grand arena, she calls herself an inventor, and I, for one, am quite intrigued to see what inventions she has for us today! Please give a warm welcome to Annie Everest, the Arcanopath!"

Initiative:
Annie: 5+1=6
Halia: 2+3=5
First attack goes to Annie!

Annie grinned cheerily as the crowd made known their excitement, already giddy with anticipation for her match. She'd heard stories of the arena upon her arrival in Enferia, and while the prospect of losing most definitely did not appeal to her, she had ultimately succumbed to the temptation of testing her latest - and greatest - inventions. She knew there was no chance that her opponent - a small half-elven girl with short, red pigtails - would have seen anything like her golem-arm pack. That gave her an advantage right from the get-go. As long as she pressed that advantage, she would surely be crowned the victor.

Today, she wore an outfit of her own choosing: A ruffled white blouse that left her shoulders bare, her torso partly covered by a rich, brown leather corset; matching leather pants with a few belts for good measure, and simple, fashionable leather boots. Resting atop her mousy brown hair rested a pair of sensible goggles, and her pride-and-joy pack was strapped to her back. A small, bronze gauntlet covered her left hand. This gear was perfect for exploring, and perfect for an arena bout, if she did say so herself.

"May the best woman win, Halia!" Annie called to her opponent, flexing her gauntlet-clad hand with a smile. Her wide, curious brown eyes shone with excitement. She was about to prove to all of Enferia what her inventions were really capable of!

Wind mussing her mousy brown hair, Annie waited eagerly for Queen Syndra to proclaim the match's start. The moment she was allowed, she opened her gauntleted palm wide, causing her pack to thrum with a low, bass tone; all systems go.

From the bottom of the pack, a single, mechanical arm shot towards the sand, pushing off against it and sending Annie soaring straight for Halia at alarming speed. Once she landed (approximately five feet from the half-elf), two more arms sprouted from the pack's top, extending over Annie's shoulders and reaching for Halia's thin arms. Should she succeed, she would grab the trickster and lift her right out of her boots, hopefully also holding her fast at the same time.

(Hope you don't mind a pic post. My contributions on this may be erratic, as I have lots of work to do, but I am enthusiastic about this thread. As always, more on my deviantart site...well...not too much more right now, but as a general rule, that's true.)

((Looks awesome! I love the depiction of the steampunk style. Here goes nothing...))

Halia grinned and gave a big childish wave to her arena fans. She stopped to adjust the few straps on her light leather armor, tightly fastened over her light green tunic and matching shorts. Bending to tug up the edges of her brown leather boots, she gave a coy little squeak when she realized her bottom was showing from beneath her tunic. She was equipped with some sort of short leather shorts that didn't really offer much protection in the real world. Looking at them gave one a pretty good idea of what her round, cute little bottom looked like; in the arena, though, it was another layer of protection.

She giggled at the audience and made a big show of straightening out her tunic. It wasn't the first time she'd teased the crowd, even though it embarrassed her somewhat. Her fair skinned cheeks housed a little blush of excitement from the gesture.

The grin on her face persisted as she produced a handful of daggers seemingly out of nowhere (beneath her gloves or from beneath her cloak perhaps? Her hands moved so quickly...) and began to juggle them in a high, slow arc. In a mock blunder, it looked like she might let the daggers fall to the ground in one moment, only to dramatically recover them and send them spinning into the air faster than before. The crowd let out some generous applause.

"She's pretty cute, isn't she?" she shouted up, cupping one hand to her mouth as she maintained the juggling with her other hand for a second. "What's that?" she cupped the hand to her ear now. "You want me to strip her naked? Well that's just rude!" she laughed, hopping forward a few steps and gathering up her knives in a practiced gesture, snatching them out of the air one-by-one.

"I guess I have to oblige the audience!" she shouted, launching a handful of knives at her opponent in anticipation of her closing the distance. A trained eye would notice a dozen little nearly invisible razor wires attached to each blade via the ring-shaped hole in the center of each. Anyone who'd seen her fight before knew the little strings were integral in her tricky fighting style. For now though, the handful of knives went spinning towards her foe.

((dex attack, when its her turn... a flurry of blows at Annie's top outer garment?))

((Hmm, would you be up for GMing this one, Cerindclvr?  We both seem to be here right now, so waiting for Phantompen seems like it might be unnecessary.  Up to you, though. Oh, and I'm liking Halia a lot. She's a lot of fun to watch. ))

((can do... should we get some armor stats going first?))

((No problem. Here's what I've got for Annie, based on her stats.))

Annie: Leather corset (6), leather pants (5), silk blouse (3), bra (2), panties (2), boots (2).

((Cool, I'll try to post tonight if I can, if not during work, lol))

((Alright, sounds good.))

((Hmm, maybe it would be better if Phantompen GMed this one after all.  Assuming he's still up for it, that is.  You seem like you're pretty busy with work as it is. Let's maybe go with a first-come-first served GM thing for this. So whoever's available at a given time can do it for that round, then whoever's available for the next one can do that one, and so on.))

((heya, my work schedule kept me busy until late late last night.  PhantomPen, during his best days, is way more active than my exhausted ass.  I have a good amount of time during the next few days if you want me to give it a go.  I'd be interested to see how more arena matches go with a neutral moderator.  Someone to fill in the descriptive gaps and make sure the rules are being enforced, all that.  The GMs have seemed pretty fair so far as the rolls go, so that's cool.  But yeah, whatever you/Phantom prefer.  Here's what I was thinking for Halia's armor setup...))

Halia: Leather Jerkin (6), Leather shorts (4), tunic top (3), tunic skirt (2), light green bra(1), light green panties (1)

((having a garment with a durability of two seems pretty pointless, right? Since almost all attacks do at least 2 damage yeh?  Also I felt like the tunic should be broken up into two parts -- how does this seem in your opinion?))

((Sounds good to me. And yeah, I'm fine with whatever, as long as we're able to keep the match moving at a steady pace.))

((One last thing, then I'll be able to post plenty tonight. So, if I'm not mistaken, Annie is going for a grapple here..? Btw, I have a possible idea for Annie's special trait, instead of the +1 attack: If you intend for her to use grappling attacks a lot, then you probably want to be able to use her INT score for grapple attacks that she initiates with the arms. I'll consider both of these things to be the case for this round, and you can see how they work. It may be a bit powerful but we'll see...))

Annie's Int attack vs Halia
Annie: 7+3=10
Halia: 4+0=4

Halia was definitely not expecting that. She had expected her opponent to close the distance, but what the hell were those golem arms? The half elf let out a little squeak of protest as the mechanical things grabbed both of her arms, causing her to drop a pair of throwing knives into the sand. Thankfully, she wasn't actually harmed as she might've been outside the arena -- the golem arms yanked her up swiftly, and as she kicked, her boots came right off of her feet.

Halia Dex attempt to escape the grapple
Halia: 4+3=7
Annie: 4+3=7
rerolling...
Halia: 3+3=6
Annie: 10+3-13
Failure to escape!

Halia whimpered, her face twisting up in exertion as she tried to escape the robot arms. They were a little too strong and a little too nimble for her to easily twist free, it seemed. With a "humph" she tried to catch her breath and hatch a plan before the Arcanopath had her way with her.

((btw, apologies for taking so long to post. Classes started again this week and my work schedule has been nuts, so hopefully things are going to get regular again and I'll have predictable days where I can post and post...

Also, Phantom, if you have some thoughts on balance or see me doing something that isn't exactly complicit with the rules, please step in and referee for us. As usual I'm kinda winging it here.))

((I like the sound of that replacement trait. Let's go with her using her int stat for grapples instead of the +1 attack. I'll be able to post more sometime tonight, and definitely a lot more this weekend. In the meantime, though, more fighting. ))

Annie grinned cheekily as Halia wriggled and squirmed, playfully sticking out her tongue as the half-elf girl accidentally kicked her boots off, leaving her small feet entirely bare. This was a very good start. Her golem arms were working just as well as she'd anticipated. Now to make things even more delightful...

"Hehe, good luck escaping from those, Halia. Those babies aren't like being grabbed by a regular girl, after all. Of course, I'm not exactly normal, so I guess that's fitting." Annie gloated cheerily, cracking her knuckles dramatically. There was really no reason for her to do that, but it added to the spectacle of the thing, and that was pretty important, too, as far as she was concerned.

"Just hold still and it'll aaaaaaall be over before you know it." Annie instructed, a mischievous giggle escaping her gently-pouted lips. Two additional arms sprung out of her backpack, mechanical fingers flexing menacingly.

"Let's see...what should I take off next...?" the inventor mused as the arms readied themselves to advance upon the seemingly-helpless Halia. "Your skirt, I think. Let's see what you're hiding underneath." Annie grinned, bouncing lightly on her toes in excitement; both for her invention's flawless execution and, secretly, for what she might be about to see...

Attack Halia's skirt: Int (+3)

Annie's Int attack vs Halia's skirt
Annie: 9+3=12
Halia: 3
Success!

Halia continued to squirm and kick as the golem arms reached up and grabbed her skirt on either side. The cloth came apart in the mechanical hands rather easily, ripping right in half. She still had her leather jerkin on over the top half of her tunic, and its matching counterpart was now on display since the skirt had been torn off. Her short, short leather breeches hugged her ass nicely, and theoretically protected a set of undergarments.

Halia let out a little noise that sounded like an angry whimper as she stopped struggling for a moment, taking a breath and conserving her strength. Her face was a little bit red and frowning as she studied the mechanical arms' grip on her wrists.

"Gotta... get... free," she grunted, twisting around some once again.

Halia dex check to escape the grapple
Halia: 7+3=10
Annie: 8+3=11
Failure!

Halia panted, exhausted. She was clearly not able to conventionally wrest herself from the firm metal hands, and with a puff of exhaustion, she blew some of the loose strands of light red hair that had fallen in front of her face. This was getting ugly quickly.

"Hmm, now then...let's see how my arms do with leather..." Annie plotted quietly, one mousy brown eyebrow raised excitedly as she watched her prized creation work. It was performing exceptionally well so far, and if she could pull off a victory, Queen Syndra would surely agree to fund her other projects, including the perfection of her golem arms. Annie had worried that she might not have worked all the kinks out of them yet, but those fears seemed to have been groundless; so far, anyway.

As if reacting to Annie's small voice, the golem arms wound their way up to Halia's torso, preparing to pluck at her leather jerkin and tear it off her, strip by strip. Should they prove successful, the half-elf girl would also feel the firm metal hands giving her small breasts a few soft squeezes as they worked, proving they could be far gentler than she might have expected...

Annie licked her lips with anticipation, anxious to see her creation win the match for her. She just hoped things continued the way they had been thus far. While she wouldn't admit it, the arms were still in their testing phase, and thus anything could happen if something were to malfunction...

Attack against Halia's jerkin: Int (+3)

Annie's Int vs Halia's jerkin
Annie: 7+3=10
Halia: 8+3=11
Defended

Halia managed to kick the hand with both feet, twisting her body in such a fashion that the other claws couldn't quite get a grip on her. Her wrists were still held up, but with a little grunt, she tried to slip her hands right out of her gloves.

Halia's Dex to escape the grapple
Halia:10+3=13
Annie: 9+3=12
Critical Escape!

Leaving her gloves behind, Halia triumphantly landed in the sand and looked up, ready to dodge her opponent's next attack.

((In the future, we should maybe implement rules for critical success on both establishing and escaping from a grapple. My first thoughts are that it would allow you to take another action in either case -- you either establish a hold so easily you can attempt another maneuver that round, or escape so quickly that you can take another action. If that sounds fair we can start using that from here on out.))

(Pictures coming maybe at a later date, if I can figure out how to make this all (grappling arms holding Halia in the air) look right!  So no promises yet.  But likely when things get a little further along and I am back from a work trip)

((That sounds fair, Cerindclvr. You can go ahead and take that extra action whenever you'd like, then calculate the success of it, since you're the GM, after all. I'm going to be busy for a couple hours, but I'll be able to post more later.))

((Nah, that doesn't seem fair. I meant from now on. Go ahead and act when you're ready.))

Annie arched a thin eyebrow as Halia squirmed her way out of her golem arms' grasp, having already been counting herself as the victor just moments earlier. She'd have to be more careful. This girl was resourceful and dexterous after all.

"Those were some long odds you just defied. Don't expect to do that again." Annie declared with a confident smirk, the arms' mechanical fingers wiggling with artificial anticipation. In truth, she was a little worried now. Halia was obviously much more agile than she was, and she'd never tested the arms' usefulness in close quarters. Well, no time like the present, right?

"Engage protocol: O-R-A."

With an over-dramatic flourish, Annie pointed a thin finger right at Halia's petite chest, giving the golem arms the trigger they needed to strike once more. Again and again, all four active hands grasped and plucked at the half-elf girl's jerkin and shorts, attempting to tear off both at once...

Flurry of Blows on Halia's jerkin and shorts: Int (+3)(-Flurry of Blows penalty)

((btw, at first, I guess because of the way her attributes are done, I was under the impression that Annie was an Int style hero? Your armor and flurry of blows suggests otherwise of course. I think it does say something about the benefits of being int-based if both the armor and the special ability are better. I feel like Phantom had a good reason for setting it up that way, but until he's around more consistently I'll have to review that... In the meantime we're gonna play through.
Also, I'm pretty sure I don't know the proper penalty for flurry of blows. Last match Phantom ran for me the penalty was -3 then -5, successively. That seemed pretty rough but may have actually been necessary to balance it out. Let's call it a -2 on the first attack and a -4 on the second for now to test it out?))

Annie's Int flurry of blows on Halia's jerkin:
Annie: 6+1=7
Halia:1
Critical defense failure!

Second attack on Halia's shorts:
Annie: 3-1=2
Halia: 5
Defense!

The hands shot out like darts and latched right onto the vulnerable straps keeping Halia's jerkin in place. She grunted and struggled, wincing at the pressure created by the sudden yanking. With a yelp, she came flying away from the arms, leaving the leather armor behind. The halves of her jerkin were hanging limply from the two hands above her. Thankfully, she still had her light green tunic beneath, as well as her skimpy leather shorts, which the hands quickly snaked towards.

When the hands came at her the second time, she was ready. A quick dagger slash knocked one of the hands away, and she tumbled away from the second one before coming up with her own flurry of blows.

Somewhere along the way, Halia had dropped several little blades into the sand, still connected to her by very fine, magical filaments that only shimmered when she called upon them. With a good number of them still around Annie, she clenched a fist to reveal the handful of wires she'd laid out in the sand, seeming to glow in the sunlight.

She yanked them back in Annie's direction, the thin little blades whirring very quickly in her direction.

Halia's dex flurry of blows attack against Annie's pants:
Halia: 7+1=8
Annie: 4+3=7
Successful attack!
dmg: [1+3+1 (base,dex,ability)] = 5

Second attack:
Halia: 7-1=6
Annie: 4+3=7
Defense!

((note: wow, same attack/defense twice in a row. Also, after rolling these, I realized Halia's special ability gives her no incentive to attack the pants multiple times with a penalty. "Let's see what's in here" gives her +1 damage on items of durability 4 or more... with the 1 base damage and her attribute +3, she does just enough damage to destroy them. That said, since the result is the same, and since I've already rolled it out, the description and rolls will remain.))

Halia recalled the razor-like daggers to her hand and she sheathed them in her belt, one by one. As they individually returned with dangerous whizzing noises, kicking up sand, the rapidly shredded the leather of Annie's pants into useless tatters.

"Aha!" she cried, temporarily forgetting that the bottom part of her ass cheeks were practically hanging out of her shorts, and that her jerkin had been unceremoniously ripped in half not moments earlier.

((Annie's an int-based character, yeah.  One of her traits is the ability to use Flurry of Blows even though she's int-based - since she has the four arms, after all - but if you think that's too strong, I have no problem changing it.  For now, I'll assume she doesn't have it.))

The triumphant grin on Annie's lips disappeared the moment she saw the telltale shimmer of Halia's secret wires surrounding her.  She'd been caught.  She knew she'd been.  She wasn't about to panic, however.  If the half-elf girl intended to tie her up, her golem arms would allow her an easy escape in mere seconds.  And if she planned on limiting her mobility through area-denial, her arms' superior reach would still afford her an advantage.

In fact, Annie was so busy mentally calculating all the ways Halia's plan was - scientifically-speaking - doomed to futility that it took her an extra second to realize the tattered remains of her pants were around her ankles.

But there she was, bare-legged and showing her underwear to the entire stadium.  Annie blushed, letting out a tiny squeak of embarrassed surprise as her real arms flew downward, hands modestly trying to cover the front of her delicate white cotton panties.

"O-Okay, well, um..." Annie stammered, her brain working furiously to try and come up with a plan of attack, or at least a better comeback than that.  "Not bad, not bad.  B-But I've still got the upper hand!" the inventor insisted, abandoning her ruined pants and letting the fifth golem arm lift her small body into the air.  Hopefully she'd be out of Halia's reach now, or at least much more difficult to hit.  Of course, this also gave the crowd a much nicer view of her panty-clad bottom, small and curvy in its cotton covering.  From her vantage point, Annie send her arms down one after another, each one attempting to latch onto whatever piece of clothing they could reach.  With any luck, she'd be able to catch the trickster off-guard with sheer directional superiority...

Attack Halia's shorts: Int (+3)

((I'm personally fine with her having flurry of blows instead of the Int Arcane Shield for now, until we figure something out that makes things seem a little more balanced...))

The arms struck downward, one by one, and Halia did her best to nimbly dance between each strike...

Annie's int vs Halia's shorts:
Annie: 5+3=8
Halia: 8
Tie goes to the higher modifier!

Spinning about in place in an attempt to give one of the arms the slip, Halia gave another one of the arms an opportunity to grab right onto her shorts. She yelped -- the fingers hooked under the bottom of her shorts through one of the legs. Essentially, rather than going for the waistband, the hand slipped along her ass and got a grip on the leather there. When it yanked, it nearly took Halia off her feet, and the loud sound of popping stitches reverberated throughout the arena. With a little grunt of exertion, the trickster managed to pull herself away... but leave her shorts behind. Yet again, one of her garments was left dangling from the mechanical hand.

Her tiny bikini-cut panties were a light, lime green color, and clung to her cute little bottom delightfully. The bottoms of her pale ass cheeks were really hanging out now, and the supple flesh quivered with each exertion she made. Halia let out a squeak that was as adorable as her undergarments as she felt her nearly bare ass in disbelief. With a little pout, she gathered her daggers up once again and shouted at the arcanopath.

"Nice one! You think I can't reach you up there, though?!" she yelled, not really angry, just a bit irritated. With a quick little sprint, she charged the inventor and grabbed onto the golem arm that kept her suspended above the sand. Nimbly, she shimmied up it, grunting to herself and grumbling.

"Keep going for my bottoms, will you..?" she murmured, bobbing out of the way of the arms as they weaved and reacted to her presence. Halia wrapped her bare thighs against the cool metal arm when she had climbed up close enough to attack Annie and held a dagger in each hand.

"Let's see you squirm away from this!" she called out cheerily, letting her blades flash out several times at whatever she could reach.

Halia's dex flurry of blows vs Annie's panties:
Halia: 2+1=3
Annie: 6+3=9
Successful defense

Halia's dex flurry, second attack, at her top:
Halia: 1-1=0
Annie: 2+3
Critical miss! Defensive penalty for one turn!

((seriously, dice??))

Halia let out a "whoa!" and nearly fell to the sand as she clumsily slashed at Annie's clothing. The golem arms weaved into place and knocked her daggers aside, rather easily, one going so far as to adroitly pluck the knife out of her hand. "Give that back!" she cried, still clinging with both hands to the arm that was holding them up.

((guess I'll update with one of these things...
Annie: Leather corset (6), leather pants (0), silk blouse (3), bra (2), panties (2), boots (2).
Halia: Leather Jerkin (0), Leather shorts (0), tunic top (3), tunic skirt (0), light green bra(1), light green panties (1).
Halia's luck could still turn around! Historically, she does poorly against INT characters, though, heheh...))