Cryogenics
Palameade Bozzuto and Sir Stibor walked in another, wider bedroom with more space in the middle. Stibor walked to the middle and then turned around. He equipped his lance and breathed in. “I am Stibor”.
Bozzuto looked down at the man half his size. “Bozzuto, but it does not matter. You will not live to tell your friends about me.” He whipped the ground with heavy intimidation.
But Stibor just looked on quietly. “That was just an introduction, to be nice. We don’t know each other so I don’t really have hate to kill you yet.”
“Bah, and so they sent this cowardly Pole to fight me.”
“But Jesus Christ asks us to not hurt others, Bozzuto. It is simply under the command of the king that I even come after you and still hopefully, I will ask for forgiveness later.”
“Good faithful discipline. It will certainly help here.”
Bozzuto cut the distance and swung his whip. The whip was a cat of nine tails with what seemed to be bright purple azaleas growing off of it. The whip itself seemed to be made of vine. Stibor ducked under the first swing. Bozzuto whipped his arm back around and Stibor hopped away from the next attack at the ground. Bozzuto moved even closer but Stibor leaned away from his next swing.
“Surely it is.”
Angrily, Bozzuto reached out to grab Stibor who backflipped and bounced off the wall sailing over Bozzuto. Stibor then hopped over the next whips and turned around chucking his lance at Bozzuto. Bozzuto quickly dodged past it and shoulder checked Stibor into a wall. Then he sent his whip descending down upon Stibor finally hitting his mark. Nine devastating marks appeared across his body. Bozzuto reared his arm back before striking at him several more times with the whip back and forth. Finally, Stibor found a moment to escape behind a bed.
Bozzuto sighed and stood back, “well with that much contact, it will take effect. The toxic enchantment of my Buzz of Nine Tails.”
“Buzz? Oh your name,” Stibor said softly. He did suddenly feel weak, perhaps the effects of the whip. He felt cold on the inside as well and couldn’t help but cover his chest with his arms. The room started to spin for him as he laid on his side. I have to move! I have to move! This man cannot certainly be merciful! He called upon his lance and tried to use that to stand up, but now he was way more wobbly and his vision was much more multiplied and dizzy than before. Bozzuto stifled a laugh as he watched Stibor trip over his own lance. Stibor fell flat on his face but did not even feel the pain. “What is this??”
“Stibor, I’ll be quick to tell you. I do not like to dilly-dally in battle. These are what a Greek would call Rhódon-Déndron. I bought it from a floral merchant who said it comes from the ‘Bed of Tibet’. Wherever that is, he also said it’s properties included hallucinogens, it’ll make your mind fuzzy like a mushroom potion.”
“Us Europeans will do anything to find a unique magic I see,” Stibor said, rising again.
“Yes well, its not that unique. The merchant also told me a rumor that in antique Greece, bees would use these flowers to make honey sometimes which caused sickness among the people that ate them. So the ‘buzz’ denotes the sound of the bees- not the sound of my name!” And he whipped Stibor back to the floor. “What is the soul and body without the mind!? Just another heathen from Mongolia! So you will be useless in your effort to fight me and I’ll now go for the kill.” He equipped a gold sword.
“Is that everything?”
“Shine with brilliance, étinceller!” His sword ignited on fire. “Die, Pole!” He swung his sword down upon Stibor which created an explosion of fire. Bozzuto then cooled off his sword with just a breath. He walked away as the smoke scattered. Then, he felt a chill in the air. He turned around to a wet Stibor. “What? Did you freeze yourself just before I burned you?”
“Yeah but, not what I truly want.” He sat up. Stibor equipped his bottle of water. He tossed the water in the air and froze it as it fell in his mouth. Then he swallowed the chunk of ice with one gulp. His face turned blue and his body seemed to shiver before coming still.
“What the hell are you doing? How is it even possible that you are conscious?” Stibor grasped his head and chattered his teeth before reeling in some kind of pain. Bozzuto had never witnessed a brain freeze but this is what Stibor had forced himself to suffer. “Maybe you are still under delusions.”
Then Stibor rose. He closed his eyes and breathed out cold air. “Sometimes a cold plunge helps, in Poland, to rid your body of an insanity. But of course, too much cold brings boogers to the nose and a different illness. So I froze my body the first time to freeze my brain, freeze the hallucinations. It didn’t work all the way so I consumed a cold thing. Now I’m back. Do you know a Greek word for this?”
“No, no, this is impossible. To use the properties of freezing in order to heal oneself. Freezing is considered under the domain of Uranus, the death magics.”
Stibor opened his eyes and took hold of his lance. Then he took his fighting stance, whispering, “Hostoja”.
Bozzuto took a wide stance as well, equipping his whip and gold sword. “No matter, it will be a repeat of round one.”
Bozzuto charged first with his whip and Stibor stepped closer, cutting off the arm with the whip. Before Bozzuto could even say anything, Stibor stepped back and cut off his sword hand. “Forgive me, knight of Napoli”. With a roundhouse swing, Stibor decapitated Bozzuto who fell on his knees behind the Pole. Bozzuto’s things fell out of his pocket and Stibor caught the bottle of water. “And thank you for the drink of water.”
And so the Chevaliers de Navire of the sea were never heard of again as they all died defending the Durazzo.
tdwriter 