Sworded Affair

Now, there was nothing fundamentally wrong with his plan of attack. Likewise, there were plenty of weapons, both ancient and modern, that were well suited for a stealthy approach, whether it was the timeless dagger, or a selection of modern firearms. The massive German Zweihänder was not one of them. Her opponent, it should be noted, was over six feet tall and quite well-built, his body well defined and straining against his clothes. That didn\'t seem to help him much, as he visibly struggled to raise it over his head, coming down with a swing packed with power but so utterly, dreadfully slow.

Emma didn\'t even need to dodge; a few steps forward at walking speed was enough to put her next to him, and thereby too close to be struck by the unwieldy weapon. He wasn\'t wearing anything around the neck, making it simple for Emma to hook the tip of her crowbar around it, and with a single flick of her wrist she tore out his throat. The Zweihänder got closer to her as it fell with his corpse than at any point prior, prompting Emma to sidestep both the cutting edge and the spray of arterial blood from her vanquished foe. She stuck around long enough to search his body, finding nothing except the standard uniform of shirt, sweatpants and shoes. His weapon wasn\'t even an afterthought, as Emma knew that she\'d never be able to make use of it, not with her current strength.

"Bad luck on the randomiser I guess," Emma concluded, leaving her first kill of the night behind as she shook the blood off of her crowbar. "He\'d have had better luck fighting with his fists."

The mini-map didn\'t show anyone else in the vicinity, though Emma noted it only showed those she\'d perceived through other means, so she kept a careful eye out for trouble. Nobody else seemed to have spawned in the immediate area however, so her next five minutes were spent at a leisurely pace, wandering the edge of the circular arena and taking her pick of intact chests. For her trouble, she found a stack of arrows with neither a quiver nor a bow, a cat o\' nine tails whip, and a pack of Oreos. Emma settled for taking the chocolate treats while leaving the rest behind; they were fresh and delicious, but that was the extent of it, as no magical buff proved forthcoming. Emma finished the entire pack once that was determined, as she saw little reason to stockpile food when the entire event would wrap up overnight.

[~Sticks and stones may break my bones, but whips and chains excite me.~]

"Calm down Rihanna," Emma deadpanned. "I have no idea how to wield a whip, I\'d be more likely to take my own eye out than the enemy."

[What\'s life without a little excitement? You only live once.]

"You are the absolute last person I want to hear that from," Emma laughed, before her crowbar whipped up to her head, blocking the rock trying to leave a dent in her skull.

The projectile came from above, and so Emma\'s head tilted up to follow the trajectory, up a nearby stack of crates to the crow\'s nest at the top. The shooter was a small, lanky fellow, barely bigger than Felix stood upright. He was loading another rock into an old leather sling, before letting it loose again. Emma stood perfectly still as it flew past her cheek, landing somewhere off in the distance without any interference on her part. Up above, her assailant reddened, his motions speeding up as he sought to avenge his embarrassment. It didn\'t help his aim in the slightest, as his next two shots fell even further away.

[A sling takes years of diligent practice to achieve accuracy under battlefield conditions. Given this abject display, I\'m fairly certain that his first shot being on target was entirely down to dumb luck.]

Watching as her opponent fired again and again, failing to hit the broad side of a barn, Emma came to the realisation that her opponents were amateurs. They might well have been skilled practitioners under normal circumstances, but they were clearly inexperienced when their magic was stripped away, leaving them little better than civilians given their first taste of combat.

"Is combat training not a thing in the Empire?" Emma asked aloud. "Sure, not everyone can earn the time of a Nascent Soul instructor, but even a little bit of training would help make this less pathetic."

That earned an enraged shout from above, and an intensified volley of stones aimed her way. Thirty stones later, Emma had been forced to wield her crowbar twice more, equating to an accuracy of below ten percent.

"I\'d climb up to deal with you, but honestly, this just feels like clubbing baby seals. Why don\'t you run off now, and try your luck elsewhere? The local nursery, maybe?"

Emma\'s stream of taunts did their job in enraging the boy, who promptly abandoned the advantage of high ground to come charging down at her, brandishing a bowie knife aggressively. His weapon had the advantage of sharpness, while her longer arms granted her greater reach. Reach won.

"Argh!"

Emma\'s crowbar broke his composure along with three of his fingers, making the boy freeze to scream in pain.

"Talking isn\'t a free action," Emma chided him, and to his credit he recovered well enough to try and reach for the crowbar with his uninjured hand.

Emma let him grab it, and landed an uppercut straight to his nose, taking advantage of his head tilting down towards her weapon. A loud crunch took out his nose, and while it didn\'t kill him with bone shards to the brain, as a popular martial arts myth would suggest, it did knock him flying; the subsequent landing of head on floor was what finally did him in.