Duel:Akenyil v Quinmyutiotu, Match 10 of the Frostmaw Tournament

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Duelists: Akenyil vs. Quinmyutiotu.
Duel: Traditional 3 posts each, with final defense. 15 minute posting limit.
Stakes: Autohit post. Advancement in the Titans of Winter Tournament 2012.
Judges: Kuzial, Satoshi


Frostmaw Colosseum

(Following Dasha vs Gorzhageigk.)


Satoshi, as per usual at the end of a match, signals the healers to tend to their wards. Although, by the looks of it, it's the feline that needs the attention and not the dragon proudly roaring his triumph in the center of the field. She can at least give the smaller of the two credit for tenacity, however.


Akenyil wanders into the confines of the colosseum, not yet roaming down to the arena floor - what with the previous combatants still there - and instead simply looks about.


Kuzial eyes the drow seemingly without interest, though the slightest narrowing of his psychotic gaze perhaps betrays he is more interested beyond his usual desire to simply kill everyone.


Quinmyutiotu anxiously fidgets in her seat.The pitcher-shaped plants sprouting from her shoulders were beginning to feel uncomfortable.


Gorzhageigk is bleeding, though not fatally so, and thus removes himself from the field in some fashion befitting a big 'ol chub-a-lub dragon.


Satoshi shouted, "The Drow mage Akenyil will now face the dryad Quetzal to determine the winner of the Spell-Weaver's category, and to progress beyond round two of the tournament. Combantants, enter the field and begin!"


Akenyil strolls down the way to the arena floor now that her name has been called, dropping from the seats to combat grounds like a rock into water. The drow doesn't need to figure out who her combatant is, having managed to spy her appearance after her last match, and so she falls almost instantly into her casting. She crouches to scoop up a handful of dirt, her good arm slashing through the necessary gestures, required incantion flowing from her lips. With the culmination of the spell, the power word echoing off the arena walls, her hand slaps down onto the ground - and evoking a grimmace in the process as the dirt and snow rubs roughly against her remaining burns. The ground shakes violently, the effect not limited to simply the arena floor. With great, cracking splits, the ground starts to jut upward in a ragged spiral with Akenyil at the epicenter, tools summoned for the grisly purpose of impalation.


Quinmyutiotu :: Just as Quinmyutiotu's feet reach the floor of the colosseum, she immediately regrets not keeping an eye out for her opponent or paying attention to what she may be capable of. Flesh beneath one of her feet begins to tear as the earth pierces it and nearly goes through the top of her foot, which would normally prompt others to flee. Instead, the dryad grits her teeth through the ordeal, and uses the rising portion of ground she's now attached to to her advantage. Using her impaled foot as an anchor, the dryad dips her body in Akenyil's direction. A pair of the pitcher plants growing from her shoulders lift their leafy tops open while the dryad's lips move in a silent incantation, and a nasty smelling viscous fluid begins to pour from the plants. With Quin's silent command, it flings itself toward Quin's opponent with the intent to cling to bare flesh and begin to eat it away. Whether or not the digestive plant fluid does as intended, the dryad uses what little time she has to wrench her foot free from its anchor and hop to another jutting piece of ground.


Akenyil is as satisfied with her blind attack as she can be, though she doesn't bother to grin. The speeding plant juices set Akenyil into motion yet again, the drow running through one of the few defensive spells she knows that needs no component...or, at least, not a visible one. Extending her hand like she's pushing on a block suspended in the air, a howling wind blows the strange attack back at its creator. A quick dip to a crouch to scoop up some snow, the mage quickly adds another aspect to the spell. What was simply a defensive move becomes far more lethal as the air takes on a frigid temperature, one far more arctic than even the norm of the frozen city, moisture in the torrent of air crystalizing into jagged, dagger-like shards that ride the frozen wind towards the Dryad, a razor wind to sheer the dryad like an unruly bush.


Quinmyutiotu continues awkwardly hopping from one jagged piece of raised earth to the next while trying to think quickly of what her next move should be. Unfortunately, her back is turned just enough so she cannot entirely see the ice shards careening toward her, but once one of those undulating vines in her hair makes an attempt to bat some away, Quin turns around fully. Naturally, the majority of them hit her. The vine manages to imitate a club, knocking a few of the ice shards back toward Akenyil. One of the dryad's bare shoulders is now peppered with icy shards embedded in her skin, and all three of the pitcher plants growing from that arm are now gone, tumbling lifelessly to the ground. The remaining three on her uninjured shoulder emit four grapefruit-sized clods of dirt in the air, which prompts the dryad to jerk her head with vine-turned-baseball-bat in a manner that whacks the four dirt clots at her opponent. As the dirt balls get closer to Akenyil, a pair of them burst into rope-like vines that aim to entangle her, and the other two grow carnivorous plants that attempt to latch onto Akenyil and leech life from her.


Akenyil is already digging into her cloak as the dryad goes about launching those dirt clods at her. By the time she's pulled out her spell component she's yelling out in frustration and pain. The drow is mid-spell when the first of those twining dirt clods entangles her, making her fight to keep her arm free to perform her spell. She very nearly loses her spell when the vampiric plants latch on, the sapping effect causing a spike in her concentration. Thankfully, she manages to hold the spell. Flames blaze to life on the drow's body, searing away the plantlife that wants to do nothing more than make her a dried husk. Growling now that her spell had to be wasted on that, Akenyil spits out another spell as venomously as she can while still keeping cadence. Whereas the ice shards were like daggers, this spell summons many, many literal daggers around Quin, each and every one pointed inward. A lethal enough barrier on its own, the daggers begin to spin to dazzling speeds, ever closing inward.


Quinmyutiotu learned from her last two mistakes with not keeping an eye on Akenyil. This time, she pays attention. The sight of her plants being burned away causes a visible flinch in disgust, but before her mind can wander too far with the thought, the dryad begins calling for more of the dirt clods. While unsure of their purpose at the moment they're brought out, Quin begins to think of something, but freezes on the spot once daggers start to encircle her. Noticing that they're drawing closer, the dryad uses a familiar tactic in attempt to protect herself. The dirt clods begin to sprout a multitude of vines that coil themselves into a thick mass around her, but instead of forming a tangled vine-ball, they've wrapped around her in a way that provides some movement. As the daggers move closer and closer, Quin lowers herself into a crouch like a tightened spring. The vines coiled around her legs dig themselves into the ground, and once the daggers are so close to the point where they're puncturing her vines, the dryad throws herself upward into the air with much-needed assistance from the springy plants. The daggers that dug into her vines were used against their conjurer; Dagger-lined vines unfurled around her (leaving behind several unintended deep cuts on Quin from their violent movement ), and while she's ragdolled into the air, the daggers are forcibly hurled right back at Akenyil.


Akenyil does not like seeing her own daggers flying back at her, not one bit. But the fact that they -are- coming back at her are her more current concern. Much like how she opened the fight, she pulls up a handful of dirt. This time, though, she does not slam it on the ground, instead sprinkling it in a semi-circle in front of her. Up shoots an earthen wall, daggers picking away and away and away at it. The disadvantage to a dirt wall? Eventually the daggers chip through, four of them slipping through to clip Akenyil's body, cutting through her dress to leave lascerations in her sides and stomach.


Quinmyutiotu , while clutching at her injured shoulder, turns awkwardly on her side and narrows her remaining eye at Akenyil. The remaining vines from her dirt clods plunge themselves into the earth and creep their way beneath Akenyil's feet, whereupon they tear through the ground. They immediately set to work with coiling themselves around the woman's ankles. The dryad's free hand pantomimes the movements she wants the vines to make with their captive while she silently chants, and the plants lift Akenyil's body a few feet off of the ground before slamming her right back into the ground immediately after Quin's hand lowers.


Kuzial does not seem too impressed with the ending of this fight. Silently he stands and spends just a moment looking at Satoshi, before turning on his heel and stalking out of the Colosseum.


Satoshi, by this point, has gotten used to that drow's daggered looks, and is all too pleased to return them along with a vulpine smirk~.