We stood in a large grassy clearing in the forest on the 22nd floor, the sun was nearly setting and the light of day had begun to fade to give an orange glow across the floor. Me and Andrew B were leaning on a couple trees on the outer rim of the clearing while Andrew and Oliver stood, in full armour and weapons at the ready opposite each other in the centre of the clearing. 8PM had come and I had picked one of my favourite resting spots in the forest to hold the friendly duel to decide the guild's leader. I looked up into the sky and the sun had nearly fallen below the tree line so I got up from my spot and walked towards the pair.
"Okay now, this duel is a simple friendly so don't get really competitive with it. First to hit yellow hit point looses and forfeits the right to become Guild leader. You may use any of the clearing to fight but try not to go to far into the forest if you can. Now, Andrew send Oliver a duel request and begin when you are ready." I lay out the rules and stakes before moving back to the tree line next to Andrew B. "200 col on Andrew winning." I say quietly to Andrew B.
"Agreed, 200 col for Oliver to win then." He replies confident that he would win this last second wager. We then both turn our attention back to the two duellists in front of us. A timer appeared in the air between the two and counted down the time till the fight begun from 60 seconds. Now the only sounds that could be heard was the wildlife moving around the forest and the gentle breeze blowing through the trees.
3...2...1... As soon as the timer ended the two exploded into action with stupendous speed. Within a second they had reached each other, Andrew drew his rapier back and conjured up a purple coloured skill which engulfed his blade while Oliver had brought his hammer back to the side and with a green skill with equal power he swung his hammer at Andrew. The two weapons collided mid air and an explosion of energy erupted between the two weapons forcing the two to move back from each other. A split second after they had disengaged however Andrew went straight on the attack and hurled attacks at Oliver with a lightning speed which I had never seen Andrew produce before now. Oliver was hard pressed to defend himself from these agile blows and so although he blocked a few of the hits he took a great deal of damage and was forced to move even further back.
The two stood off for a mere second before Oliver Charged headlong at Andrew spinning his hammer over his head with a great shout. He took the momentum he had built up and lowered his hammer down mid spin and planted a solid hit into Andrew's chest plate sending him flying back into the ground. Oliver pressed on and brought his hammer down upon Andrew. Luckily for Andrew he was able to roll out of harms way and quickly get to his feet. Oliver however wasn't going to give Andrew a second to recover and so continued on his attack with heavy swings which Andrew had to jump out of the way of. Andrew then jumped to Oliver's side and planted a well aimed stab with his steel rapier at the weak point in Oliver's full body armour.
Oliver quickly countered by turning round and launching his hammer at Andrew, this took him completely by surprise and so the hammer once again smashed right into Andrew's chest plate and knocking him to the ground. As the hammer dropped down to the ground Oliver drew a huge great sword from his back and charged down at his stunned enemy with a powerful crimson red skill. Andrew seeing this new weapon got to his feet and raced towards it while building up a powerful skill to match Oliver's. The two swords clashed and yet again an explosion of power erupted between the two, however neither gave the other an inch of ground to work with.
Sword clashed against sword with equal skill and power, yet neither had the upper hand over the other. Te sun had begun to truly set and the two blades were reflecting the dying light of the day. Andrew saw this and took this chance to his advantage, he angled his blade so that the reflecting light dazed Oliver for a second. This second however was long enough for Andrew, he stabbed out with his rapier mercilessly and landed a solid blow on Oliver's chest directly on the heart.
I looked up at the floating panel showing the two's health bars and saw that that last blow to Oliver had just pushed him over into yellow health. I then turned to Andrew's health bar and saw that he was practically a few hit points off of yellow HP. The duel then ended automatically with a large floating "WINNER!" above Andrew's head. At seeing this I turned to Andrew B with a cocky smile and said "200 col, thank you." Andrew B reluctantly sent me the money and we both walked over to the battleground.
"You can put your weapons away now." I say fiercely noticing the two glaring each other down with swords at the ready, still half into a battle state of mind. The two then realised it was over and only a friendly quickly let their guards down and sheathed their weapons and shook each others hands. Oliver then went to retrieve his thrown hammer which he leant upon when he returned to us.
"Well that was a pretty spectacular duel you two and I guess that decides that Andrew is going to be the guild leader." I say happy that Andrew had won the duel.
"Damn well deserves it as well after that. Never saw the blinding tactic coming at all and his speed with that rapier is just mad and congrats on winning your place as leader." Oliver comments with a laugh not holding a grudge against Andrew for beating him.
"Thanks. I'm surprised I won that to be honest as when you pulled that sword out I thought that would be then end of it all. But anyway good fight, should be interesting the next time we duel." Andrew replies with excitement and a hint of relief in his voice.
"Well I better be getting back home as travelling in the dark can get annoying with the shadow monsters on my floor." Andrew says before we say our farewells and he leaves to go to the floor portal.
"I suppose I'd better get back again, so cya and I expect to have an invite for that guild by the end of the week." He says with a mocked seriousness. After he left me and Andrew were left in the ever darkening clearing.
"See I said a duel was a good idea, didn't I." I say to Andrew with a smile looking at my still slightly ecstatic and shocked friend.
"That was the first time I've done any player versus player combat. So it could have gone either way really, I just got lucky I suppose. As how is a light weapon and armour user face up against a person with full on heavy armour and heavy weapons like Oliver's. And anyway nice spot for it, but why did you chose it to be here." He says modestly as he looked at the now dark and star filled night sky above us.
"Well I chose this spot for an actual reason you know, not just because it looked good. Each night the sun sets in approximately the same place and the light from the setting sun always falls in this circle. So hoping that one of you would pick up on this fact and use it to daze or blind the other, I chose it. And it would seem that my bet payed off pretty well, although I didn't expect Oliver to have a secondary weapon like that so I got a bit worried at that point." I say with an arrogant smile knowing that Andrew would soon realise that I had deliberately picked a place which had an advantage for the person who figured it out first. After that I began to walk back to my house with Andrew quickly following suit and joining me on the way back.
"Well now that you've finished interfering with things, what should the guild actually be called?" He asks in a contemplative voice as he thought over his decision.
I look at Andrew in disbelief and remark. "You've got this far into this guild idea and you haven't even got a name for it. Have you three even talked about what it will be called or were you to engrossed in choosing the leader and ways to make me join it." I say incredulously starting to laugh.
"Well it wasn't really that important at the time." He replies with a laugh. "But now I think about it there are a couple names I could call it." He continues once again in a contemplative way.
"Go on then, it's always interesting to hear the names you come up with." I remark thinking of all the names for groups he always used to come up with, cliche and unimaginative.
"The Golden-Oak Rangers." He says confidently after a few seconds of thinking, he then nods his head happy with the title which he had created. He then looks at me worried that I'm about to disagree with this name.
"Honestly, that is a pretty good name and the ranger part actually suits you and your battle style." I say sincerely "So I expect to see that guild up soon now that those formalities are sorted out." I continue when I see my house a small walk down the road.
"Should be up pretty soon I hope. Well cya later then" He says as I walk up the small path to my log house.
"Cya later." I return before turning my back on Andrew and walk towards my dark and empty house.