Duel:Berkedai v Vehara, Final Match of the 2014 Frostmaw Tournament
Duelists: Berkedai vs. Vehara Duel: Traditional 3 posts each, with final defense. 15 minute posting limit. Stakes: Autohit post. Champion of the Titans of Winter Tournament 2014. Judges: (Hmail Judges) Svilfon, Tiphareth, Satoshi
Cold Winds
Frostmaw is a frozen land notorious for its unforgiving bite of frost and unrelenting howl of winds. And the site for the championship match of the Titans of Winter tournament is no exception. This arena has been conjured by Satoshi herself, a feat of cryomancy mastery in honor of the tournament finalists. Here, the combatants reside in the center of a veritable whirlwind, the shrieking walls of air laden heavily with shards of ice that threaten to shred, freeze, and pulverize anything unfortunate enough to get near. Safety is found only in the 'eye' of this storm--if one can consider a ground of slick ice safe. One wrong step can easily send a person sliding into the whirlwind, waiting to give them the blender treatment. This is the final test for Berkedai and Vehara, with both having succeeded in winning their matches in the other regions, they must now face the fangs of Frostmaw.
Vehara finds herself incarcerated in this makeshift arena with her final opponent, Berkedai. The half-drow stares out at the nomad in silent appraisal, slender-yet-wiry arms folding beneath her chest as the harrowing howl of those violent winds assaults her senses. Ignoring the riotous din, the assassin pulls a pair of toxin-tipped daggers up and out of their respective sheathes, coming to rest within her ebon-skinned palms in a simple practiced motion. Giving a haughty flick of her hair, Hara finally elects to address her foe. “Finally. Let’s get this over with.” No more than another half second is wasted before the assassin shoots forth; she has not forgotten about the perilous conditions of Frostmaw, and as such she wears a pair of unusually grippy boots and moves a touch or two slower than normal in her initial approach, which still leaves her knifing through the space between them in a tenebrous streak. Coming to a gradual sliding stop just before Berkedai, the huntress erupts in a flurry of violent motion. Utilizing a myriad of dizzying angles and feints to make herself especially difficult to counter or predict, Vehara seems to dance in and out of the nomad’s effective range, her keenly edged daggers swiping high, stabbing low and aching to carve up Berkedai’s legs and throat to leave him resembling little more than an overly bloody sieve. Closing her initial ambush, the assassin leaps aside and the sleeves of her cloak peel back as if on cue, revealing a pair of diminutive crossbows affixed to either wrist. Sheathing her sister blades, the projectile weapons soon take precise aim and activate with an ominous ‘click’, spitting two darts for the nomad’s shoulders with heart stopping speed and accuracy. No doubt they are laced with a pernicious poison, and no doubt they can leave him with significantly hampered mobility in little time should they strike true…
Berkedai stands watching Vehara from the center of the raging storm. The nomad wears a set of segmented armor, thin, overlapping iron scales sewn onto a tunic of heavy silk. His only concession to the bitter cold of the northern land is a well-worn cloak of wolf fur, already heavy with snow, and boots set with spikes for traction. The herdsman carries his double-curved bow of horn and wood in one hand, the ornate faerie-fire lantern that was his prize from the last fight in the other, while his curved sword hangs from his waist. Strapped to his back is a short, stout staff, to the top of which a small halberd's head has been fixed. Berkedai takes a deep, steadying breath, exhaling in a warm cloud that steams in the frigid air, a picture of calm even as the assassin begins to move. She is faster than he had expected, though, and she catches him even as he moves to keep his distance, throwing himself to one side as the blades flash out. The ring of knife on armor is lost amidst the howling wind as the iron plates keep the nomad's legs safe from harm, bright scratches appearing in the tarnish as, with all of his weight behind him, the herdsman's dive sends him sliding away from his opponent. He stands, blood welling and dripping from a red line that stretches from cheekbone to jaw, a long cut from one of Vehara's knives. As the crossbow bolts lance out, Berkedai twists, letting one bolt slide off the scales of his armor with a rattle. The other strikes more directly, punching through a scale to be mired in the heavily-woven silk beneath, where it lodges uncomfortably. Ignoring it, the herdsman slings his ornate lantern along the ground, letting the flitting, dancing light slide across the ice toward Vehara, while the nomad himself begins to flinch away, as if from an imminent explosion, hoping that his foe will be watching him and, unaware yet as to the lantern's rather mundane nature, will do her best to dodge. Fluidly, the herdsman moves from flinching to drawing an arrow from his quiver, setting shaft to string in the same motion. His weapon creaks in the cold as it bends, straining against the string, before snapping back with terrible force, sending the arrow screaming toward the drow's chest mere heartbeats after the lantern slides by, the wide, v-shaped head designed to slice flesh and leave a gaping, grisly wound. The arrow's twin follows it almostly unbelievably swiftly, Berkedai's hands a blur as he races to double the danger, making a slight adjustment for the whirling wind before sending his second shot, this one lower than the first in hopes of catching the half-drow's thigh, where the deadly iron tip might well sever tendons or even the artery, crippling or killing.
Vehara finds her dagger now tainted with a crimson streak, a certain smirk spreading across her lips. Giving little time to celebrating such a minor wound, the half-drow withdraws into a readied stance, coiled back like a cobra ready to strike. The sight of that lantern sent skittering across the ice is definitely peculiar, but the way Berkedai seems to shrink away from it signals some sort of possible explosive charge. Not taking any chances, the assassin leaps aside, her form twirling deftly in the air with acrobatic grace; coming to land, the ice proves a touch slipperier than expected and she nearly abandons balance, sent in an awkward twirl that comes to her luck. The first arrow shrieks by in a blur, narrowly missing her slender form and striking right into those razor-winds, reducing the projectile into a messy shower of splinters in a mere half instant. Taking swift heed of the incoming sibling, Vehara grits her teeth and again seeks to twirl aside, but that damnable ice complicates matters. The arrowhead doesn’t strike completely true, but it does slice through cloth and flesh alike in its hasty path, knifing through the skin of her leg just below the hip to issue forth a macabre spray of blood. Cursing at being wounded – however superficial the wound may be, since it merely scored skin and not anything more vital – she discards the previously hidden crossbows and corrects her balance, advancing on the bow wielding nomad once more. All while her form flicks this way and that, making her a tricky target for any follow up shots that may ensue; midway, the assassin bends at the knees and launches forth with a wince, assuming artificial flight that soon leaves her squared with Berkedai once again, landing on her fresher leg to avoid aggravating the injury. Foregoing her daggers this time, Vehara clicks her heels together and a pair of vicious blades emerge from the tip of her boots, small but certainly capable of inducing grievous injury. Reaching into an unseen pocket on her cloak, Hara throws forth a choking cloud of poisonous debris for the nomad’s face, following up in a swift assault. Noting the presence of that trapped bolt, the assassin thrusts a palm out and seeks to finish the job, aching to jab it further to gain purchase in flesh while a numbing uppercut follows, rapidly closing in on Berkedai’s jaw. Taking at most a half step back, Vehara snaps a kick for her foe’s groin, viciously seeking to tear into any tender organs that may lie there.
Berkedai throws his bow clear as Vehara comes after him, saving the valuable weapon and freeing his hands. His right hand comes up as she lands, protecting his face as he unwillingly is forced backward on the ice. Having interrogated Meri just a few nights before, he is ready for the debris, closing his eyes to prevent what his hand and the wind cannot stop. He grunts and tries to worm away from the crossbow bolt, twisting as best as he can to free it from his armor, though even through the silk it scratches and bruises his flesh. The uppercut lands as he is twisting, and it slams on the side of his jaw, some of the force mercifully stolen by the slick of now-frozen blood there. He twists his right hand down as she steps back, scrabbling for his dagger to gain an edge, and earning a blinding pain for his efforts, a red spray of blood and a chunk of his hand sent spinning to the ice. Gritting his teeth through the agony, deftly snatches up one of the fallen scales from his armor, his numbed fingers turning it over in his hand until the sharpest points face outward. Pulling his short halberd from its leather loop with his maimed hand, he forces himself back into the fray, his approach much more deliberate than is his wont, the combination of cold, and wounds slowing him infuriatingly. Still, the man's spirit seems strong enough as he unleashes a scything blow of the halberd, sent out at knee-height in an attempt to carve Vehara's legs into stumps - or else to make her jump, for he punches out with the iron scale, his sights set once more on the half-drow's throat so that, if she does not jump, the scale will imbed itself in her windpipe, while if she does, it will merely pierce her near the sternum, but with enough power to perhaps send her skidding across the slick landscape and into the maelstrom of jagged ice and wind that tears the air. Indeed, this seems to be the nomad's fondest hope, for he uses every ounce of weight and strength he has to hammer blows at his foe, hoping to drive her back into the chaos.
Vehara plants her foot soundly into the icy ground to recover smoothly from the kick, her eyes set into cold slits that survey the nomad’s accumulating injuries. Retreating to a suitable distance, the half-drow again waits in a readied stance when Berkedai gamely comes forth brandishing that short halberd, those emerald eyes watching vigilantly for that moment when she may be able to evade the coming stroke. The scything strike indeed follows and she slickly moves away at an angle, moving in such a way as to avoid backing into that treacherous wall of razor frost that surrounds herself and the nomad. So great is her focus on that haldberd however that she only bears notice of the incoming scale-enforced punch at near the last moment; her left arm awkwardly flings up to protect her throat, and so it does, but at a cost. The spiny, jagged edge mercilessly tears through the sleeve of her cloak and gives way to a crimson mist that likely coats Berkedai’s face; such a cruel strike elicits a howl of agony from the half-drow, her innermost instincts flaring as she moves with a swiftness previously unseen, her balance precariously kept as she circles intelligently away from any subsequent blows, avoiding any path that might lead her backing right into certain death. Feeling she has enough distance on her foe now, the wound on her arm is surveyed; it is deep and rivulets of crimson pour free on all sides of the torn flesh, leaving that arm far more difficult to use than before. For this reason she grips her kusarigama at the waist with her fresher right, a simple flick of the wrist given that sends the chain unfurling and twirling before her in a tornadic arc, making any path toward the assassin incredibly perilous. Keeping the rotations of her wrist, one might notice the weight affixed at the end is different tonight; still small and dense, but small spines cover the thing, offering another layer to the insidious weapon. Gaining a wealth of momentum, the spined weight crashes its weight for Berkedai in three savage swipes; the first comes in a deft passage for his throat, while the second dips for his torso. The third and final sends the weight crushing right toward his belly, and it is only at the last instant that one last underhanded trick is employed; the ensorcelled weapon erupts with a burst of violent, unseen force at the weighted tip. Not only can it crush ribs into mulch, but coupled with the force already contained, it may well be enough to crash the nomad right into that fierce wall of icy-blades, bringing this duel and his very existence to an abrupt close.
Berkedai, from his discussion with Vehara's previous matchup, has been waiting for the strange weapon to appear, and it is for this that he even brought the halberd, but he is still surprised at the speed of it as he ducks the first swing letting the weight pass in a blur above his head. He straightens, sweeping the halberd around to deflect the second blow, and moving toward his opponent at the same time, so that as the third strike arrives he is able to jerk to one side and swing the halberd again, striking the chain so that it will wrap around the haft of the weapon, the spines thudding solidly into the wood. A split second later, however, the halberd is torn from his hand, ripping the skin as it is wrenched away by magical means. Berkedai lets it go with a grunt of pain, his wrist wrenching painfully. Dropping the armor scale, the nomad draws his curved sword somewhat awkwardly with his left hand and drives forward, his spiked boots shattering the ice as they gain purchase on the slick surface as he staggers toward the assassin, whose weapon is hopefully still entangled with the abandoned halberd. His left hand crosses his body and the flicks back, swinging the sword in an attempt to eviscerate his enemy, the sharpened steel easily able to slit Vehara's stomach and release the gory flood of organs within. Even as the weapon moves, however, the nomad pulls it back, letting his momentum carry him on as his stunned and useless right hand, the bloodflow from the wound frozen to a slush, hammers out toward his opponent's face with all the raw power of an archer, aimed to crush the assassin's nose, perhaps even to break the cheekbones beneath. The sword steadies in his left hand as he takes a firm grip and uses the last reserves of his stamina in an ugly swing, the axe-like blade seeking to bury itself high on Vehara's ribcage, to cleave flesh and bone alike on its way to the heart.
Vehara howls in frustration when her chain-sickle becomes tangled with the halberd, even if the magical charge proceeds to disarm her opponent. Knowing that she can be advanced on once again, the half-drow speedily detaches the chain from the sickle with practiced ease, leaving her with a one-handed grip on the curved-blade. Willing herself to ignore those needles of agony stabbing through her body, the assassin stands ready to meet Berkedai and his latest flurry of strikes. The gutting slice is met with the sickle, stepping away in the same moment and gritting her teeth as the muscles in her arm strain, desperately trying to wrench the nomad’s weapon away. She fails in the end, but even so the first strike is sufficiently averted. At such a close range and with that wound on her leg where the edge of the arrow sliced past, she cannot quite move swiftly enough to avoid the punch carried out by Berkedai’s grotesquely wounded hand. The ‘fist’ catches her on the cheek with a telltale snap, ringing her head back and spilling the assassin onto the icy floor of this chosen arena. Her body sets into a most hazardous slide, luckily missing the ensuing stroke of that axe-like blade, though she does note the dissonant hiss it leaves upon the air. Soon it is drowned out by the whirring of the icy blades, as it appears Hara is sliding right toward them! Thinking fast, she stabs the point of the sickle into the ice, chipping and gaining just enough purchase to bring her momentum to a grinding halt. So close is she that the icy blades are dangerously close to giving her hair a crude cut and relieving her of that pretty little head entirely. Giving an uncharacteristic cry of distress, Hara squirms away and makes to her feet like a little girl avoiding the embrace of a slimy snail, her focus falling upon Berkedai once more. Her cheek is reddened and swollen, blood drips from that deep gash in her arm and the wound on her leg looks like frostbite could set in if not tended to this night. She Is wounded, weary, but confident as the bout draws to a close.
Winner: (Pending)