Bob's Bar

Ten fighters triggered their abilities and chaos erupted in the arena. Not even a second had passed after the gods announced the start of the fight. The crowd went wild with excitement. The noise from the stands was deafening and it felt like the arena was shaking from all the cheers.

Bob had noticed that the avatar to his right was a melee fighter, most likely a barbarian class. They had an axe and shield. To his left was something he hadn't seen before. The avatar was holding what looked like a metal and wood stick. It was narrow at the end and widened towards the rear of the weapon. His mind was trying to tell him something, he had seen a weapon like that before but couldn't figure out where. He didn't want to fight the unknown, so he planned on going after the barbarian first. He was familiar enough with their abilities and felt confident he could easily win.

As soon as the match started Bob threw down a smoke flask. The cloud enveloped him rapidly as he moved in the direction of the barbarian. He planned on moving to the edge of the smoke to hopefully get the drop on his chosen opponent. Suddenly the was a loud noise, it was a sharp crack and a boom that followed shortly after. The noise came from the direction of the avatar to his left. He instantly knew that the other avatar was a ranged class. He switched his priority, he didn't know exactly what whizzed by him, but he figured he definitely didn't want to be hit by it. He moved through the smoke, back towards the left avatar. He could kind of see them, the smoke was thick and hard to see through, even at the edge. The avatar looked to have finished loading his weapon. As he continued watching he pulled a fire flask from his bandolier. The other avatar lifted his weapon, aimed, and fired into the smoke cloud. Bob was stunned, he couldn't see the projectile, and the noise that came from the weapon was terrifying.

Bob was about to hurl his fire flask at the ranged avatar but whirled around after hearing a noise behind him. The barbarian had entered the smoke cloud and was coughing, choking on the smoke. He knew the barbarian was too close to use his fire flask so he decided to get closer after putting the flask back in his bandolier. He knew it was going to be a risk, but he didn't want to blow himself up or blow away the smoke screen he created. Creeping up on the avatar, he got in melee range, noticing the avatar had his sword in his left hand. That worked out well for Bob. He grabbed the barbarian's sword arm with his left hand. He kept his right hand free just in case he needed to grab the shield arm. After he grabbed the arm, he launched a vicious kick to the back of the barbarian's left knee. With a grunt, the barbarian dropped to a knee and struggled to get his arm free. Bob figured out that his strength attribute had to be considerably higher than the barbarians, as they were unable to free themselves from his grip.

Another crack and boom came from behind him. This time the projectile was a lot closer to him, he could see where the smoke was disturbed not very far in front of him. He needed to finish the barbarian quickly. He ripped the barbarian's helmet off and started savagely punching the side of his head. He quickly knocked the barbarian out. He grabbed a light flask and hurled it in the direction of the ranged avatar. He didn't want to waste a fire flask on a potential miss. The light flask hit the ground and detonated with a blinding light. Bob had closed his eyes for a brief moment until he heard a scream. He rushed forward out of the smoke cloud, by this time the smoke had started to clear up. He saw the ranged avatar frantically wiping his eyes, trying to clear them from being blinded. He was far enough away, so Bob threw a fire flask at him. The flask struck the avatar dead center in his chest. The explosion blew the upper half of the avatar completely apart. A shower of blood and viscera sprayed in a wide arc. He went back to the barbarian, they were still unconscious. He grabbed the sword that had fallen out of the barbarian's hands and stabbed it straight into the avatar's neck. A choking sound followed by a spasm as blood poured from his neck marked the end of the barbarian.

Bob was breathing a little heavy, not from the physical exertion, but from the rush of combat. He looked at the other fights that were happening. There were still five other avatars fighting that he could see. He spotted the body of one avatar, they looked like they might have been a cryomancer.

"Ok, three dead avatars," Bob said in his mind. "A barbarian and assassin are fighting there. That's five opponents accounted for. Two more ranged avatars are there. They were moving, dodging, and firing arrows at each other. Where are the other two?"

A fiery explosion blew Bob sideways. He landed hard on his side while also getting his head slammed into the ground. He was dazed and in immense amounts of pain. He knew he needed to get up before the next explosion hit him. He looked up to see two avatars holding fireballs in their hands. The fireballs were about the size of Bob's head. The avatars had savage grins on their faces, one was a human male, the other was a female elf. In unison, they threw the fireballs at Bob. Bob managed to roll his body. He moved far enough to not get directly hit by the fireballs. The explosion sent him flying regardless. He was blown towards the arena wall. He coughed and gasped for air. The explosion had knocked his breath away. Panicking he summoned a smoke flask in his hand and smashed it into the ground. He wanted to block the fire wielders line of sight. After the smoke erupted around him, he forced himself to his feet and moved quickly away from where he had landed. Two more fireballs smashed into the wall, very close to where he had been lying. His ears were ringing, the only other thing he could hear was the now muffled sound of the crowd.

Bob looked down at his body. His armor had definitely saved him, but everywhere the armor didn't cover was blackened flesh. He knew his injuries weren't as severe as they could have been, but he was hurting badly. No more fireballs flew in his direction, and he was glad for the reprieve. He thought about trying to get sight of the fire throwers but remembered his new flask was an area-of-effect weapon. He first grabbed his last light flask from his bandolier and threw it up in a lobbing arc. He wanted to see if the fire throwers would do the same as the cryomancer he faced a while back. Sure enough, they did, the light was amplified by the fiery explosion. Running out of the smoke cloud, he saw the two avatars. They weren't completely blinded by the flask, but they were still impaired enough to not immediately attack him on-site. Quickly judging the distance, he conjured and launched an ice flask at the avatars. Not wasting any time, he moved from where he had thrown the first ice flask running in an arc around the avatars. One of the fire throwers managed to launch an attack at the flask and hit it before it could harm them. He summoned two more flasks, one smoke the other ice. He threw the smoke first, even if they did hit this one mid-air, they wouldn't see the next one. Both fire throwers launched attacks, one targeted the flask, the other at him. He rolled forward, having still been running. The fireball detonated far behind him. The smoke flask had detonated and blocked the fire throwers sight. Still having a good idea where they were, he threw the ice flask. A flash of blue light and a scream were all the confirmation he needed.