Brute of the Week: Editor's Awards

[DoF Archive]

Date: 6/15/1999 11:38 AM Central Daylight Time
From: RDI Editor

For the Week of May 31 - SpifyMcBng

Trace had paid some attention to what was happening in the rings that week. He'd even gone himself down to the floor of the Outback to witness the pugilists beating upon one another. All in all, it had been an enjoyable evening for him; to get out, to meet others ... even women!

The big fellow who'd won the Brute that week was Goon. He'd been away from dueling some, or that was Trace's understanding. When the wordsmith saw the big guy come in the door calling for someone to fight him, Mr. Williams did what all good Englishman do when the check comes ... he went to the lavatory to let someone else pay it.

Still, Goon did well and deserved the award that week. Trace sent the buckle, engraved as it was with the date and the winner's ... um ... name. Then the wordsmith wrote up the announcement and tacked it to the corkboard as usual.

[DoF Archive]

Date: 6/15/1999 11:48 AM Central Daylight Time
From: RDI Editor



For the week of June 7 - OorTael5



Trace leaned back in his noisy chair and frowned. He agreed with Rask that Kelli was the Brute this week for winning the Opal. He would have given her the Brute award too, because of that. But, the fact was, the Opal seemed to him to be its own reward. When he saw the other suggestions, he saw another, compelling option.

Galin Taelca (OorTael5), had fought his heart out as a newcomer. That was the sort of spirit the Brute of the Week embraced. So the Buckle that was the award for stamina, good sportsmanship, and pushing through despite the odds went to Galin.

Trace had the buckle engraved and sent, as usual, with his personal note of congratulations included. Then he visited the Outback to tack the award to the notices.

[DoF Archive]

Date: 6/26/1999 2:42 AM Central Daylight Time
From: SpifyMcBng


"Goon! Goon!"

Goon bounced around in the doorway of RhyDin's antique library, threatening to tear the frame out with the mere girth of his shoulders. Eventually, as usual, he managed to shove his way through with a general lack of permanent damage.

"Goon, I found this just a few minutes ago." The kindly, older woman was running from her office, the thick heels of her shoes threatening to turn an ankle with each step. In her hands sat a small box, earmarked as official Duel of Fists property. "It came a couple of weeks ago, but I set it aside and forgot about it. I'm very sorry."

"It ok!" The lug grinned that grin he always grinned when he grinned. Huge, just like him. "Goon thank for not lose!" Taking the box, fumbling the box, then holding the box tightly and ripping one side of it off, the contents fell out into his outrageously large hand.

Bounce.. bounce.. juggle.. flail. The buckle hurtled through the air with Goon quick to chase. Eyes on the prize, he grabbed and grabbed, only to keep it airborne longer.. and to cause the panic-stricken patrons to dive for cover from the flying tables and chairs.

"Goon get! Goon g.." WHUMP. That was the sound library regulars had become familiar with- Goon meeting wall. Tipping backwards, arms splayed wide, the buckle found its way in an arc that settled it directly in his hand. Laying there, trying to get his senses back, he would certainly enjoy his prize. Later.

[DoF Archive]

Date: 7/8/1999 2:43 PM Central Daylight Time
From: RDI Editor


For the week of June 14
and June 21 - Qzarian3



Despite his best efforts to get away from his desk, Trace hadn't made it back to the Outback to watch the duels. He took the word of the referees and decided on Kheldar Drasinia (Qzarian3) for lasting 12 rounds with the tigerlady, Maetel, and managing to continue on to yet another duel and win that one as well.

Several nights the dueling was sparse and so no votes came back at allthe following week. But Kheldar he did as well in the rings that week as he had the one before and so Trace decided to let the Brute award cover a two week period.

Summer was a hot, quiet time and not as many pugilists came to the rings to do their battling. Truth be told, many of them fought in the heat of the streets after sundown. Trace let a smile linger about his lips. More than once he'd heard the local law enforcement endeavor to break up a tiff or two outside his window.

Summer was also a difficult time to sleep and Trace escaped many nightmares just by sitting up at night, a cooling breeze stirred by the nearness of his office to the docks keeping him company.

He sent the award off to Kheldar with his personal best wishes and posted the message on the corkboard the very next time he went by the Outback.

[DoF Archive]

Date: 7/8/1999 11:26 PM Central Daylight Time
From: Qzarian3

Returns from another night of dueling to find a package and a note waiting for him.. Apon inspection he finds that he was voted as the Brute of the Week.. Smiles slightly as he was not expecting that, not thinking that he did all that well. Shrugs not going to complain as he walks in and puts it on the table and goes up to bed.

[DoF Archive]

Date: 7/29/1999 1:32 PM Central Daylight Time
From: RDI Editor


For the week of 6/28

Trace came to himself three blocks from home. He was leaning against a brick wall, his hands viciously scraped and bloodied. He screamed with the pain that shot up his leg and collapsed to the ground.

His brain, despite the pain, tried to reason. This was certainly not how a wordsmith ought to be, nor where. What's happened? He tried to move and felt the warmth of fluid gush over his foot. The pain shot again up his leg. When he could stomach a look, he saw a strange line burned into, and through, his pants. His eyes, streaming with tears, widened. His hands stung and he could barely move the pant leg that was burned and bloodily
glued to his skin. The edge of the trouser material was completely cauterized as was his leg beneath where the material had been burned through to the skin. It hurt like hell. He didn't want to move because it would only make it worse. In fact, even as he sat, a fresh crack in the thin black surface formed and more blood flowed. He cried out with it, sobbing like a child, and glanced around him.

After several minutes of disorientation, he recognized the street and forced himself to his feet, biting off another scream of pain. It took him hours to limp to his office, which was closer than home. There he had a full first aid kit.

===
Once his hands were wrapped, if poorly, he had been able to tend, shaking, to his leg. As he placed the last strip of gauze over the wound and taped it into place with the adhesive, he felt the deep ache in his palms. He'd never suffered much in the way of hurts in his life. This was a new, and unwanted, experience. He found, as he finally sat down to work, that he couldn't lift his pen to write. Perhaps in a day or two ... he thought as
he fainted.

===

The award for Kerrazy (Kerazzy6) waited on his desk. The Buckle had been sent to the engraver the day before with the information, but the unfinished certificate sat until Trace's hands should heal more completely. At the end of the week, when the courier delivered the finished buckle, Trace was no where to be found.

The engraved Buckle gleamed with the words:



The Phantom
Brute of the Duel of Fists
28 June 1999




((Yes, it's late...sorry! ))

[DoF Archive]

Date: 8/3/1999 3:40 PM Central Daylight Time
From: RDI Editor


For the week of 7/5

It had been three weeks. After Kerrazy, Harris (Harris4801) received the Brute Award in Trace's estimation, when all votes were carefully considered, for soundly defeating some opponents and one who was equally undefeated for the same number of duels as Harris in the same evening. And later in the same month, though Trace wouldn't have had the opportunity to see it had he given the award on time, Harrs had distinguished himself several
times. Overall, Harris had done quite well and Trace felt he deserved the award more than once. Still, he could give it only once when others too, had made a Brutish showing of their strength according to the referees. His hands still prevented him from writing up the certificate that went with the Award, so it waited, resting with Kerrazy's until Trace could deliver them in person to make up for his lateness.

Trace admired these men and women more than he could say. He was learning by their example to fight the blackouts that seemed to come upon him. He no longer had the violent nightmares, but the displacement he had begun to suffer was far, far worse. Three weeks after he'd found himself in the alley at the beginning of the month, he awoke under the pier at RhyDin's harbor. All he could recall were vague, shadowy images of some distant, desolate
place.

Sleeping drugs seemed to have little effect at keeping him at home in the false surety of his comfortable bed. Twice more he had sustained injuries. One was a severe pain in his shoulder -- which he found at the local hospital to be the result of a dislocation. He hadn't been in the rings, but what other explanation was there? Either he had fought and been injured in the rings -- the records didn't show more than his one duel! Or he had been
attacked. The physician who examined him told him there had been no trauma to his skull, no signs of internal injuries or chemicals in his system other than those he himself had admitted to taking.

"Get some rest ... stay with someone," the doctor told him. "We could admit you, watch you...?"

"No. No, thank you," Trace told him, if with some reluctance. "I have duties which need to be tended to."

"You can hardly move your hands," the doctor's final objection fell, dying, from his lips as Trace turned on his heel and left the hospital.

The doctor never saw him again.

The buckle reads:



Harris D'Artainian
Brute of Duel of Fists
5 July 1999

[DoF Archive]

Date: 8/3/1999 3:41 PM Central Daylight Time
From: RDI Editor




For the week of 7/12

For the weeks he'd missed, first Kerrazy, then Harris, then Andrew Forcer (AndrewFrcr), Trace shakily, and finally made out the certificates that went with the Brute Buckles. He admired Andrew's prowess, when he forced himself to think of something other than his quandary of prognosticatious disappearances. Another dueler that significant night had made quite the run,
but Andrew slapped him down. Andrew had dueled the previous weeks' Brute, Harris, three times in one night -- something Trace had never heard of happening before -- and defeated him twice. His total of four wins were all marvelously close, to a point even; but that very thing gave them the level of brutality Trace thought was worthy of the award.

He posted the notices and took time to hand deliver each award he'd let sit on his desk. But he couldn't bring himself to apologize to the men, who's awards he had delayed, in the way he felt he should. He was too worn down, too weary. So, he went home. By the time he reached his door he was armed with chain and padlocks, as well as borrowed hand and ankle brackets from the local blacksmith.

The world he lived in seemed so surreal and far away as he settled down his burdens of iron. The world of shadows into which his body had been vanishing night after night, week after week, and paying for each vanishing with lifeblood and sweat -- was drawing his attention and his thoughts more and more. It had seemed to him that an ethereal window had opened up. More and more he'd become aware of it. Wispy at it's edges, through it's center he
could clearly see. The world within the window was frighteningly compelling. Stark, dangerous ... and in it, he was not merely a wordsmith relegated to handing out awards to those who fought for sport. Rather, he found himself a fighter ... his mass increased, his mind as sharper there as it was muddled here in the world which he believed was his reality.

That was the worst part about his growing displacement. He was certain he'd gone mad and wondered how soon the authorities would come to arrest him for some murder or other. One could not find oneself blocks, miles, days away from home with blood on one's hands and not be guilty of something heinous. His visions of this other world, this Sabatt, overwhelmed his psyche, occupied his every waking moment so that finally, he was beginning not
only to doubt his sanity, or his world's reality; but also his own existence.

Was perhaps RhyDin, where he lived and worked in peacefulness, the dream and this other, this nightmare, the truth? Or was it all some cosmic joke perpetrated on creation by a wrathful deity?

He looked over the last votes, made a choice and locked his office door.


The Brutish Buckle, engraved, declares:



Andrew Forcer
Brute of Duel of Fists
12 July 1999

[DoF Archive]

Date: 8/3/1999 3:44 PM Central Daylight Time
From: RDI Editor

For the week of 7/19

The blood dripped from his hands. His wrists and ankles had been lacerated, he imagined, from where the force that had taken him out of his world into the other had wrenched the iron shackles from his body. The scene before him was wasteland, ruins in the distance. This was it, madness at last. He felt a swirling around him and what stood before
him, folded. It was replaced by an unfolding of his office.

He was outside the door. The shackles he had, with ritualistic precision, secured tightly around his person, hadn't kept him in. The door was still locked from within, however. He found that out as he rattled the knob. Looking down, he saw another package, bent and scooped it up smearing red heat all over the brown paper and on the rough, sisal twine.

===

After securing the services of a locksmith -- after all, Trace's key was inside the office -- the wordsmith seated himself at his desk. He sat with a bottle of brandy, a snifter and another Buckle, engraved cleanly with the name of a newcomer (SavannahSW) he would never know personally. This
one he would send by courier as usual.

His scarred hands, moving slowly because of his now bandaged wrists, turned the buckle over so he could read the inscription:



"Savannah
Brute of Duel of Fists
19 July 1999"



What a pretty name, he thought. I wonder if the woman behind it is as lovely. Certainly she was tough for she had defeated the "Phantom" after all and had he not just won the Brute so recently before that?
Trace packaged the Buckle, with a much more neatly handwritten certification of it's authenticity (despite the bandaging this time of his wrists and ankles and the drowsiness caused by the painkillers). Then he leaned back, poured himself some brandy, and waited.

Surely, the insanity will strike again, he mused, sipping. Surely, it's not over.

[DoF Archive]

Date: 8/3/1999 5:26 PM Central Daylight Time
From: RDI Editor

For the week of 7/26

Trace had been lulled into a sense of security. A full week had gone by and no episodes of displacement had occurred. Perhaps his life was finding it's way back on track. No nightmares. He was healing nicely. He even managed to get into the Outback, quietly, unobtrusively, for a night of observation. His injured ankles and wrists wouldn't allow him to have dueled if he wanted to, but he had gone, drawn by the compulsion to study the people
he had come to admire in so short a time.

One man dueling had the same name as an Emerald of the early days of the Duel of Fists. Tracey knew this because he had access to old records and this fellow Percival had the same signature. He didn't look very old at all. He would have been just a young man when he began dueling; but he flowed from move to move in the ring as though he could read his opponent's thoughts. The duel he fought against Veli Mahti went as if choreographed. It seemed
to Trace that the two had rehearsed every round before they'd begun fighting, only every point of the match, as it happened, went to the graceful dancer, Percival.

Nearly every time he scored, Percival offered his sincere apology. So gentlemanly, so honestly was it done that it was clear he bore no ill will toward the man he was utterly, completely crushing under his superior skill. Trace found himself enjoying the match completely; both in the beauty of the execution of the defeat and the honorable behavior of the fighters.

Trace went home and rested, still lost in that welcome feeling of finding surety in his world at last. After the votes were in, he found the favor to rest with the man who's duel he'd watched. And so, he wrote up the certificate, and sent the engraver the name to put on the buckle. In two days time, days in which he'd rested and recuperated even further from his ordeals, Trace received back the buckle. He posted an announcement on the corkboard
in the Outback and went to deliver it personally to the fellow he'd seen duel.

The buckle read:


Percival
Brute of the Duel of Fists
26 July 1999



The man wasn't in the dojo. So Trace set out to scout around the town to see if he were staying in the local inn or somewhere nearby. The only address in the old records was a monastery; but the wordsmith had thought to try more local sites first. Finally, with no success on that front, he rented an old, reliable gray mare from the town blacksmith. He packed the Award in a saddle bag and turned his face toward the monastery where Percival once
had stayed.

Tracey Williams never met the man to whom the buckle had been awarded. On the outskirts of the town a wind whipped up. The desolate, stomach wrenching displacement surrounded Trace again ripping to shreds the false sense of security he'd had. Blackness grew as his body was constricted in what felt like a viselike vine's grip and did not let him go.

When the wind settled, the spooked horse, her saddle empty, ran the familiar road home.

[DoF Archive]

Date: 8/3/1999 5:32 PM Central Daylight Time
From: SavannahSW


The courier had arrived at her door as she was sulking in the bath. The insistent knocking drew her out of the bubbly tub, wincing softly as the bruises from last nights match protested painfully.

"I am...eh, I am almost there!", she called out in the direction of the door as she wrapped a huge towel around herself.

She was not in the best of moods, she had gotten some disturbing news last night then went to the Outback to try and forget it. She wound up with more bruises than she could count and a loss.

She swung the door open and looked at the man before her, noting the package he carried.

Her first reaction was that she should have come to the door armed, a package was an unknown and in light of last night's information, she could have just placed herself in a fatal situation.

In a calm tone of voice she tested the waters, "Zdravstvuitye."

It was a simple greeting in Russia, but few in this town knew her language and the blank look she received from the man eased her mind.

"Eh, yes?", she smiled at him.

"You got the brute of the week award from the Outback, congratulations Savannah.", he held the award out for her to take.

It was then she realized he was looking at her a bit too closely in her towel. She had the grace to blush as she held firm the upper end of the towel with her right hand and gathered the award with her left.

"Eh, thank you.", she reached over to grab a silver piece from the desk by her door, gave it to the boy and quickly shut it.

She looked at the thing in her hands for a moment, she recognized her name and the numbers, but the other words were still beyond her capabilites.

"Brute?", she mummered. "I will need to ask what this brute thing is.".

Setting the award down on her bed she returned to her bath in the hopes that she could work out some of the kinks before tonight.

[DoF Archive]

Date: 8/9/1999 1:53 PM Central Daylight Time
From: RDI Glo



With the disappearance of Tracey Williams from his office in RhyDin, reported to the local authorities by the stablemaster to whom the horse he had rented had returned; the Brute Awarding had to be reassigned. In the meantime, the powers that were, by consensus on the vote, Awarded the Brute buckle to Obilyth Star (Obilyth) for the week of 2 August.

The announcement tacked up on the DoF corkboard read:

Congratulations Obilyth Star! Brute of the Week of the Duel of Fists.

The buckle, as in the past, was engraved with the date and name of the winner.

[DoF Archive]

Date: 8/14/1999 7:40 PM Central Daylight Time
From: RDI Glo



The secretary to the head DoF paper-pusher brought the award to the main office and left it and the certificate-for-framing there for someone to drop in the delivery box.

The award that week was going to Casey (CasyWldEye) for doing well and wining two duels and fighting to sudden death -- though losing to seasoned duelers -- but sticking with it. A clear example of the fortitude it took to be the Brute of the Duel of Fists.

The posted flyer on the corkboard read:

"For the week of August 9 -- Congratulations Casey! The Brute of the Week is yours this time around. Well done!"

[DoF Archive]

Date: 8/16/1999 1:14 PM Central Daylight Time
From: XJaycyndaX

Jaycy passed by the notice awarding Casey the Brute of the Week and just kinda blinked a few moments.

Under her breath she murmured, "Did hell freeze over or somethin'? Casey, a brawler? And winning the Brute of the Week award?"

Chuckling, she shook her head as she wandered off to tell Casey the news.

[DoF Archive]

Date: 8/30/1999 7:01 PM Central Daylight Time
From: RDI Glo

Kridgerkantharkis De Ceux Qui Seront Mort lll (otherwise known as iluvcheese), was about to be awarded the prestigious Brute of the Week award. Typically, the award went to those voted on by the staff; but the half elf had shown such a penchant for dueling again and again, (as had, we must say by way of recognition, James Del Sage -- though losing is not often as rewarded as winning -- keep trying James!) that it was
imperative that the award go to Gerk. (Or perhaps that was Krid... maybe Ant? Could be Thark... or even Kis, one can never be too sure on these things ... )

The trouble was, the name of the Brute winner for that week was so long, that the engravers had a little trouble getting the full name centered properly on the Belt Buckle Award.

As it turned out, they decided to engrave the initials of said winner and leave the full name to the award certificate and the posted announcement that went along with the win.

On the boards the announcement read as follows:

"Congratulations Kridgerkantharkis De Ceux Qui Seront Mort lll! You're the Brute of the Week for 16 August 1999"

On the buckle it was engraved:



KDCQSM 3
BoW
16 August 1999



Which, thought the engraver, actually looked quite stylish ...