(YB) Laughing Boy Jack barely defeats Shou Ren! (Thanks for judging Yellow Sign!)

[Dark Eternal]

Introducing:

Laughing Boy Jack


Throughout the city and the outlying urban and rural areas, warriors devoted to causes both high and honorable, and dark and wicked, are fighting battles, training furiously, or seeking elusive perfection. Some are brutal creatures of raw power, who demolish their adversaries with insurmountable strength. Others are cunning and sly, turning their opponents against themselves with crafty tactics and deceptive manipulation. Some seek to further great purposes, others only to further their own ends. One and all, they have faced many challenges and overcome many obsticles to rise to the levels of prowess and recognition that they now enjoy.

On this particular day, as on any other, the sounds of battle, the cries of victory and defeat, even the breathing of fighters pushing themselves beyond their limits in private training practice can be heard from the many places where these champions meet. But there is a new sound, as well... skipping through the alleyways, dancing across the fields, soaring from the rooftops, echoing in underground grottos... there rises a singsong voice, chanting a strange (but annoyingly catchy) tune...

Fight for an hour, fight for a day;
fight for your life, or give it away-

Skip for a jump, and up for a down,
Laughing Boy Jack is coming to town.

Hide in the closet, run for the hills-
use all your magic, try all your skills;

Stand if you want to, block or attack-
You'll never beat this Laughing Boy Jack!

 

[Ciaran]

The pound, pound, pounding of drums resounds throughout the Arena District. Passersby draw aside as a double row of skeletal heralds, reeking with dry rot, precedes the passage of an ornate palanquin borne on the shoulders of massive zombie eunuchs.

"Halt," croaks a voice from within the palanquin. The skeletons skirl upon their drums, then are silent; the palanquin lurches to a stop.

"Find that atrocious singer," sighs that cold, distant voice. "Find him, and bring him to me." With a rustling of tattered cloth and a creak of bone, the skeletons set their instruments aside and move out into the crowd, their blind and barren skulls turning this way and that in their search for Laughing Boy Jack.

 

[Dark Eternal]

Meanwhile...

...just a short distance away...

A lithe young figure skips and dances down the street. Short and slender, the figure is tightly wrapped in silks of various (and clashing) colors, with streamers flowing off the wrists and ankles. The constant dancing and twirling keeps the colorful streamers from ever making contact with the ground.

At first, it's easy to mistake the youth for a young man, with smooth and somewhat feminine features. However, a closer look in between cartwheels and twirling leaps reveals the figure to be that of a young woman.

Passerby do their best to keep their distance from her, as she prances and tumbles about - not least because whenever she draws close enough to one, she will leapfrog over them, or pirouette around them, or even kick upwards and dance off of their head. Outraged cries, annoyed mumbles and furious threats echo throughout the square - as do her singsong lyrics.


Dance if you're flying, fall if you sneeze;
Laugh if you're crying, do what you please.

Wander about from city to town;
Smilin' and singin' and twirlin' aroun'

Free on my own, I'll never look back-
World, watch out for Laughing Boy Jack!

Her song cuts off rather abrubtly as a group of skeletons march around the corner ahead.

 

[Ciaran]

The undead shamble forward in their shabby finery. The sinking sun gleams on yellowed skulls as they close in upon Jack in a tightening semicircle.

 

[Dark Eternal]

Watching the skeletons with a faintly puzzled expression, Laughing Boy Jack lets the circle surrounder her. Sensing that the undead probably aren't brilliant conversationalists, and that they don't seem to be trying to kill her, she allows herself to be brought along without incident. She even keeps relatively quiet as the procession heads back the way that the skeletons came.

 

[Ciaran]

The skeletons escort Jack down a winding alley to a deserted street, where a palanquin laden with green and purple curtains sits in the midst of four odious, hulking zombies. A cold voice issues from the curtains: "Bring her here."

As the skeletons press Jack forward, a languid hand parts the curtains, revealing a small, gaunt figure draped in violet robes. An elaborate bronze mask, etched with incomprehensible signs, gleams beneath the figure's drooping hood. "You are a curious creature," says the figure. "I have traveled to distant lands, enslaved the foulest demons of the Yama Realms and bound the weeping dead in chains of jade; but in all my wanderings, I have never heard a voice as irritating as yours. So tell me: what are you?"

 

[Orryn Emrys]

{post content deleted}

 

[Dark Eternal]

With a musical chuckle, Jack glances at the mysterious robed creature who addresses her. She flips her hair, and replies:

Velvet bird in a gilded cage,
Ruffled in a ripe old age
Asked a finch who freely flew
"Just what kind of bird are you?"

Said the finch as she flew by,
"Who are you to ask, and why?
And why are you hiding in there,
When there's an open sky to share!"

So speaking, she smiles charmingly.

 

[Ciaran]

"You are an insolent creature," hisses the voice behind the mask. "Be silent, lest I punish you for your temerity."

 

[Yellow Sign]

Out of a shadow a tall figure dressed in tattered yellow robes appears. It's face is covered in a pallid mask. He/she stands there unmoving as if waiting for something.