Okay, so some of you may know that I roleplay from time to time, but one thing you may not know is that I tend to get depressed when winter rears its ugly head. To compensate, I decided to stop feeling sorry for myself one day and instead try my hand at this writing thing.
Some background: The world is shamelessly borrowed from AdventureQuest (some of you younger folk might be familiar with it: I know tofurox is), and indeed, the story you're about to read is based off of events that took place during a great roleplaying tournament they try to hold every summer on the boards there; the Elemental Championships.
To the uninitiated: In a nutshell, what happens is that you make your character, who has pledged his/her/its allegiance to one of the eight Elemental Lords; the Lords of Fire, Water, Wind, Ice, Earth, Energy, Light and Darkness. So great is their devotion that they are willing to fight to prove the superiority of their Lord against the other entrants, each with their own agendas and motivations for competing. This year, there were three or four preliminary arenas, and between them, those to be judged the greatest representative of each element are chosen to participate in a free-for-all, anything-goes fight in the Grand Finals. While I was never supposed to make it out of that first round this year, the rightful Champion of Ice never showed up, so I got to try my hand because I was "second string". (I can only imagine what the conversation between the rightful champion and the organizer was like once the former finally decided to return to the Internet. One thing I'm counting on is that it wasn't pretty.)
What you are about to read is what I imagine is my character's take on what happened during his experience in the Grand Finals. I hope you enjoy it very much.
Chapter 1
I saw the Chosen leave the arena of stones floating who knows how far above the ground, and when I noticed I was not one of them, I resigned myself to keep fighting for the entertainment of the masses.
I may not have been chosen to participate in the Finals, but I would do everything within the power granted to me by my almighty Lord of Ice to prove that though I apparently did not have the right skills to move on, I could at least stop these other foolish flesh-forms from thinking I was just another monster meant to be slaughtered, not to mention the bloodthirsty crowd watching thanks to the scrying windows all over the place that allowed those who lacked the courage and skill to participate to nevertheless revel in the action.
Ever since I was created, I was taught that my kind was thought of as something for a flesh-form "adventurer" to cut his teeth on, nothing more than a training dummy, a stepping stone to fights that would shape the future of Lore. But we were stronger than that. The very fact that the average flesh-form had to take special precautions against being overly harmed by the power of ice just to survive where we decided to make our home, however, was enough to convince me that I could become something more, something greater. As I trained, I thought of myself as not just a Snow Warrior, but representative of all the monstrous races in general. I thought that you didn't need to be a flesh-form to win, and I was bent on becoming proof of that.
But enough about my history. There I was, still fighting for my life against exceptional flesh-forms bent on each other's destruction, though given the number of times I had to concern myself with two foes at once, I had my suspicions that the flesh-forms up here with me fully intended to eliminate me first. It didn't help when that one flesh-form tried to burn me with fire. Three flaming comets had come my way, but I could easily manage to evade two of them. The third one, however, had found its mark, and being an attack of an element my form was particularly vulnerable to, I was in understandable discomfort. But still, I fought on.
Suddenly, even though I had seen the Chosen leave the arena, I found myself in a different place. Around me, but separated by a number of protective wards, both physical and magical, were all manner of flesh-forms; another arena, perhaps? Then I took a look behind me. It was a magnificent pillar, almost like a gigantic, inverted icicle. Around the perimeter of my new surroundings were manifestations of the other seven elements.
Then it hit me.
I was in the Grand Finals. Despite the original wishes of my Lord, his chosen representative was a no-show. That much was evident from the mark on my back. It burned like that fire attack did, but there was no mistaking its divine origin. That mark was a reminder that I was nothing more than a stand-in, but still, I had been given a boon by Fate and by my Lord, and I did not intend to squander this opportunity.