Nisha's Story: Chapter 2

VS Amezwar: Influence

Aug 17, 2023

Open on Grand Festival Hub

Nisha, Walakea, and Tetlacatl are standing at center screen. Walakea is performing some of his moves.

Walakea: Nisha, you should do some quick training while you still can. Even stretching can help.

Nisha: I’d prefer to focus on other aspects of the festival. Coming here solely to focus on combat would be a wasted opportunity.

Hákon walks on screen and approaches the trio.

Nisha: Greetings.

Hákon: Hey. I was wondering, would you accept thralls as students at your school? I think it’d be good for them if I sent some of mine when I can spare them.

Nisha: Hmm, that’s not a question I expected to get. We-

Tetlacatl: Yes. And we won’t treat them differently from other students.

Tetlacatl: (Nisha, trust me to handle this.)

Hákon: I wouldn’t expect otherwise. Good luck in your next match Nisha.

Hákon leaves.

Nisha: I’m not entirely at ease with this, I’ve already felt too involved with Hákon and his slave holding. Though I assume your true aim here is undermining it.

Tetlacatl: Correct. I’m sure that once they see societies without slavery, the supposedly content slaves here will realize their position. That’s the power of knowledge. Eventually it should work on Hákon as well.

Walakea: I doubt anyone other than Hákon will send their slaves to us, or that anyone else cares what their slaves have to say. But convincing Hákon would make quite the change.

Nisha: Is it right for us to work with that aim however? None of us are part of this culture, trying to influence it according to our own beliefs can be a dangerous path. And it may not have the results we hope for.

Walakea: Living in this world means influencing it. We’re not forcing anything on people. As you have often said, all we’re doing is spreading knowledge. We’re in charge of a library and school, not a country.

Nisha: I’m aware I influence events, but I prefer to keep the method to the spread of information. Immortality means living with the full consequences of our actions. I don’t want to make rash decisions I’ll regret.

Walakea: Immortality also means we can continue this after your match, it’s nearly time.

Nisha: Already? Then I suppose there’s no choice.

Exploration Start

This time there are more platforms on the way to the fight, so you can play around with them. Take the time to practice anything that still doesn’t feel quite right to you after the first battle.

Cautious Xilian Merchant: They say the dragon Nisha is spreading lies to undermine the empire. You’ll have to buy more before you get my opinion.

Vindictive Hirzeni Merchant: I wish it was easier to identify people from Brytholm so I could deny them my wares. Their kind have yet to atone for what they did to us, enslavement isn’t easily forgotten, not even when generations pass.

Perplexed Mondragaen Mercenary: I know the dragons can do almost anything with their powers, but why drop chandeliers of all things on people.

Friendly Dravalan Noble: There have been jokes about Nisha dropping chandeliers on people for quite a while, clearly she found them funny enough to make true.

Keep walking until you reach a new character to start the next battle.

Exploration End

Nisha is standing next to Massen, a lizal man with fancy clothing that seems impractical for any real work.

Massen: Lady Nisha I presume?

Nisha: I don’t claim any formal title for myself, but that is my name. And you are?

Massen: Lord Massen of Pheona. I’ve heard of your grand library and goals of spreading knowledge. My homeland is proud of its history, but we are rather lacking in knowledge of other lands, many even prefer falsehoods to truth.

Nisha: I’m well aware of King Xamida’s lies about Lunis and Aodh. The library is far from here, but seek it out after this festival and I’ll share various texts.

Massen: You have my gratitude, hopefully this will help enable some change for my people.

Massen: In Pheona there are those, like Amezwar, your next opponent, who simply refuse to question the falsehoods about other lands they’ve been told, and when informed hardly seem to care about their own ignorance.

Nisha: (Is there some deeper agenda at play here? Is he trying to direct my anger towards Amezwar so I’ll lose focus? Either way it doesn’t change what I need to do.)

Nisha: That is rather unfortunate.

Nisha walks off-screen to the right.

Transition to Lava Lake

The ground is a rough rocky surface. There’s a lake of lava and the wall of a volcano in the background. On both sides of the stage are lava. Above it is a single floating platform.

Nisha stands on one side, Amezwar on the other.

Amezwar: Greetings Lady Nisha. Before we begin our battle, I have a request. Would you introduce me to your fellow dragon Aodh? I have a message from my king for him.

Nisha: First I’d ask something of you. Do you know that your king spread a false account of the Bloody Day, the tragedy that led to Aodh leaving Lunis?

Amezwar: I have been informed, but as his servant it is not my place to question or reject his words. As a knight of Pheona my focus is on it alone, I don’t have time for Lunan history. Knowing the truth only matters for better carrying out my duty.

Nisha: I see. Unfortunately for you, I despise your king for that false account of his. I’m not an enemy, but I hold no intention of being your ally. Now prepare for your defeat.

Battle Start

It’s time for some zoner on zoner battling. Amezwar’s long spear gives him great reach for his melee attacks, but you have traps and projectiles.

On this stage you want the opponent up against the edge so they can be knocked into the lava, which will do damage to them before launching them back. It’s also fairly small, so there isn’t much room to run in circles.

The long platform in the center can be useful for avoiding Amezwar’s attacks, letting you jump over his long stabs and run to the other end of the stage. Your own chandelier traps will fall past the platform, so don’t worry if Amezwar is under it.

At first you might think your big projectiles are great for this fight, and they are, but Amezwar can reflect that at you. However he will always reflect them if he can, making it a pattern that you can exploit, like using the opening to place a chandelier.

He’ll also try to attack your chandelier traps to destroy them, which you should expect in all fights going forward. When he goes for that, advance on him, since you know he isn’t targeting you. That’s the best time to fire off a projectile.

Your supers on the other hand are good at exploiting Amezwar’s own weakness. Standing in the safe spot for Metal Rain forces him to get closer to you than is optimal for him. Armory Assault on the other hand strikes at the distance he prefers to stand at.

Learn to exploit Amezwar’s patterns, and you’ll be able to deliver a swift beatdown to him that will send him right out of the bracket.

Battle End

Transition to Grand Festival Hub

Nisha walks in from the right, Walakea and Tetlacatl are waiting for her.

Tetlacatl: You fought well, why do you look like you lost?

Nisha: Someone approached me before the battle, who was either a kindred spirit or trying to manipulate me in some way. They spoke of wanting to make their homeland more knowledgable, and claimed my opponent was apathetic to it.

Walakea: Either they failed or they wasted their time, it was a tournament match, you were trying to win anyway. And that Amezwar is a knight of Pheona isn’t he, answers directly to the king, I doubt he’d be a friend of ours.

Tetlacatl: I’ve heard he was put on trial for suspicion of being a traitor. Perhaps he’s more aligned to our beliefs than he appears?

Nisha: No, the person I spoke to emphasized his apathy towards knowledge of the world, and I confirmed it myself before our battle. Though with what you say, he likely has many enemies, perhaps I’ve aided them by defeating him.

Tetlacatl: Then it’s likely none of our concern, and what the enforcer of a king like that had coming. What is of concern is your opponent next round and who might come after, and not just the fight with them.

Walakea: You mean that gladiator from Brytholm? I don’t want anyone from that isle winning this tournament, but he is only a slave, I pity him more than anything else. His master likely has little ambition beyond money and popularity.

Nisha: And who might I fight after this gladiator?

Tetlacatl: Quiahuitl or Eamon, whoever wins next round. If Quiahuitl gets that far she needs to be eliminated immediately.

Nisha: Is Quiahuitl winning that terrible? Obviously I hate her for butchering and destroying historical records, but this is only a tournament. I doubt it will decide the fate of either country.

Tetlacatl: For the people of Xilaman it will reinforce her status as ruler and her authority. Meaning she’ll be taken more seriously when speaking ill of us and rewriting more history. We can’t let her grow more powerful.

Nisha: (I wish more societies didn’t value strength so highly, this is starting to become quite a burden.)

Nisha: Then if she gets that far I’ll defeat her. For now I’d like to put the tournament out of mind while I can.

Chapter END

Note from the Author: This chapter brushed closer to the deadline than I’d like. Serialization is quite the rough journey, especially when you’ve been on it for a year. But I met the deadline.

Despite being featured in the prior story, it somehow feels like a while since I’ve written Amezwar and Massen. And this brief appearance offers a different perspective on them than Amezwar’s own story.

I usually try to give NPCs some opinion on the information they convey, but the Hirzeni merchant in this chapter took me by surprise when his dialogue reached its current form, not bad for a nameless character with two sentences.

Optional Discussion Prompt: If you’ve read any of the other character stories, do you feel they give you more insight into the events of this one?

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The Warthog Report

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