Duel:Cresente v Gorehilt, Match 3 of the 2023 Titans of Winter Tournament
Duelists: Cresente vs Gorehilt Duel: Traditional 3 rounds with final defense, 20 minute posting limit. Stakes: Standard, autohit delivered by winner with allowance for final reply. Judges: Magikrios, Mahri, and Quintessa.
East Arena
Unlike the others, the ground of the eastern arena is not paved of dirt or marble, but roughly cut, white bricks of ancient clay. Built into the pattern of the pieces is a primeval design of magical epistle, neatly segregating the area into proportionate divisions. Each region bears the glyph of the elemental sphere controlling its nature: earth, air, water, fire and spirit. The very central portion bears no sigil at all, though, as the hard ground has been burned over and blackened.
Cresente rolls his shoulders back to crack his stiffened joins as he makes his way into the arena. For all intents and purposes, he appears to be just a Schezeradian civilian. His musculature is evident even through the button-down shirt and well-beaten coat he wears, both of which have been modified to allow his ebon wings to pass through the fabric and rest against the small of his back. Although he is not yet armed, there is a single handed crossbow on one hip, and a shortsword on the other. Littered across his belt is what appears to be an entire weapons’ cache as well. Cresente takes a drag of his cigarette, eyeing his opponent from head to toe. “Aren’t you a large lad?” They are the same height. “Tell me, Gorehilt, are you a creature of faith?”
Gorehilt stands in the arena looking surly. He's dressed in his trusty chain mail and keeps his notorious spear tucked in the crook of one elbow--a dull black weapon that seems to get a little fuzzy-wobbly as one stares at it, rather as though it actively resists the viewer. In his other hand, Gore holds a hot chocolate in a paper cup. He sips it moodily. A lot has happened since the half-orc's last tourney, and he has some things to work through. "Yeah, it's something to you?" The greenskin scowls, wrinkling what little nose he has. A Vakmathras medal stands embossed on one of his spiked pauldrons. "Do you," he spits a chocolatey wad of phlegm for emphasis, "take umbridge, or what?"
Valrae || The excitement for the Titans of Winter tournament held strong as lines grew and stands crowded in the Cenril arena. Valrae sat in her box seat and waited patiently for the signal that the newest pair of competitors were ready for her introduction. When it finally came, she stood and raised a single hand and waited for a hush to fall. “Welcome to the third match of the Titans of Winter!” She pauses again before her enchanted voice rings out anew. “Today, Cresente and Gorehilt will test their might not only against each other but…” As the mayor speaks, the glyphs that had been activated before ignited again with mana. Instead of elemental beasts, the white brick erupted and grew, taking the form of tall pillars and jutting shelves that connected without any sense of direction to each other. But seeking shelter from the unpredictable lightning beneath the shelves would not be so simple. There was danger in resting for too long, as fire would spit down from hidden runes toward the arena floor without warning before moving onto the next. Magically summoned clouds form over the opened ceiling of the arena. They were as black and angry as a bruise, pressing into the arena and filling the air with the promise of rain and the sting of lightning as they shook the area with thunder. “They will also be braving quite the storm.” It wasn’t long before wind followed, seemingly searching to pull everything within the center of the arena into itself while harmlessly offering a cool breeze to those who speculated outside of it. Valrae dropped her hand. “Begin.”
Round One:
Gorehilt chugs the last of his drink, crushes the cup in his hand, and flexes his fingers in their chain gauntlets. As the arena darkens and the air crackles, he watches Valrae keenly for her signal. A storm is it. Gorehilt can't hold back a sneer of satisfaction, and his mind turns toward the ring upon his right hand. It was already becoming a matter of superstition with him, but seriously, this is one more reason he's never EVER taking that thing off. "How do you like that?" Valrea's hand falls. Gorehilt explodes into a sprint. His legs, lungs, and heart pound in unison as he bolts straight through the heart of the storm, all caution thrown aside as he makes a mad dash for the avian. Hissing arcs of lightning coil around him, leaping to ground, bent aside by the ring's magic, and orbs of faerie fire dance harmlessly around his armor. "Eat this!" The greenskin winds his spear in a haymaker, and the weapon bends with the force of the swing. It whips forward, blurred with speed a magic and residual crackling static alike, and Gorehilt wrenches the thrust, adding unknown vectors to the tip's arc. It's a blitz tactic through and through. Gore wants first blood.
Cresente opens his cloak with his right hand to retrieve a weapon as the pillars grow, and places the lit cigarette back in his mouth with his left. “Umbridge is an understatement.” The volume of this statement is drowned out by the magically conjured storm drowning out the daylight above. His eyes remain fixed on the half-orc’s movements as Gorehilt approaches first. Cresente moves to draw his sword, but with a blinding arc of lightning that cuts between the two, he realizes too late that the spear’s trajectory cannot be predicted enough to simply parry it. Ebon wings extend out around him like a shield to allow the tip of the spear to pierce him. If he is pained as a result of this, Crescente’s expression does not show it save for a sneer. He snaps his wings back to their folded position once the hit lands, unlodging the spear’s tip in the process, and revealing his now-drawn shortsword poised and ready to impale Gorehilt at such close range. Crescente stabs the sword forward, and whether it lands or not, he makes his own attack now. The avian uses the raised brick steps to maneuver a few steps back. With surprising dexterity for someone who appears to be a touch too old for dueling, Cresente unfurls four round satchels from his belt, and flings them in rapid succession with his left hand. Two are aimed at Gorehilt’s torso, while two are aimed at the white brick shelves that jut out above them. Whether they land on body, weapon, or arena, the thin material has been designed to explode on impact and send recently boiled liquid tar splattering and dripping down onto the floor of the arena. It would only be a matter of time before the hidden runes or the lightning sets the tar ablaze, hopefully along with Gorehilt. In the meantime, he keeps his sword drawn and moves upwards to make use of the brick shelves and prevent another head-on attack.
Round Two:
Gorehilt feels his spear score a hit (a very palpable hit). "Ha!" He barks a callous laugh and continues pressing his advance... right into the tip of Cresente's sword. The laugh's tail twists into a breathy grunt as it jabs against his belly, a sharp blow against the chain rings that will surely leave him sore and bruised beneath his arming doublet. Spurned on by the pain, the battle hungry Gorehilt sticks to Crescente like glue, following him close up the stairs and refusing to give up an inch of the ground he's gained. It gives him no opportunity to dodge the flasks, but with the greenskin at point blank range, was the avian prepared to deal with the collateral burst? The two could well share their inflammable fate. Meanwhile, the knight of Vakmatharas has shifted his grip on the spear, favoring a quick two-handed style that more closely resembles staff fighting. He assails Cresente with a flurry of light strikes to overwhelm the avian. Though he'll score whatever hits he can land, with blade or butt alike, the half orc's real aim is to force his opponent to parry with the short sword. Should Crescente dare to raise his guard, Gore will try to come under his arm and cut into the exposed armpit.
Cresente curses the storm. Even while standing on the upper shelves, the force of the winds threatens to pull him off should he misstep. With Gorehilt undeterred by the blade, the odds are becoming more and more likely. This is not a storm that one could comfortably fly and maneuver into, and it limits his options… But not all of them, though. Cresente alternates parrying between the studded guards on his forearms and his sword. Blows do land, sending blood from the crown of his head into the stands, but his movements do not falter, not yet. When Gorehilt dives down to cut in, Cresente takes no chances, swinging his body to the side and bringing his knee up to greet his face. The spear only grazes his coat, taking a healthy amount of leather with it. Even though Cresente is also splattered with bits of tar, there is more of it on Gorehilt, and for that, he gives a perplexing half-smile as he backs up towards the edge of the shelf. At this point, they have climbed and parried themselves to a place nearly seven meters off the ground, and the winds are calling. Cresente spits his lit cigarette at a patch of tar near Gorehilt’s feet, setting the brick shelf and the only staircase from where they came ablaze. The high winds only serve to fan the flames, with the little bits of water barely making a dent in them. As soon as the cigarette leaves his lips, Cresente falls back and opens his wings, allowing the fierce winds to carry him away from his opponent. He would not be had so easily. While the storm threatens to pull Cresente into the center of the vortex with each rotation, he unclips his one-handed crossbow, already loaded with a bolt, and takes aim at the only exposed flesh he can see on Gorehilt: his face. He takes the shot, and allows the crossbow to fall from his hand so he can grab onto a jutted out shelf and pull himself back to safety. Hopefully, he has bought enough time with this maneuver that he can be on his feet again by the time the half-orc catches up.
Round Three:
Gorehilt grunts again. This time, the involuntary sound comes in response to the revelatory pain of Cresente's knee connecting with his face. Pain explodes through Gorehilt's skull, and whatever advantage he'd gained by pressing forward is lost in an instant as he staggers and begins skidding down the steep brick stairs. Within their chain gauntlets, fingers claw and clench, but the find no sure purchase against the slick, damp stones. Though Cresente flicks a cigarette after his falling form, Gorehilt's armored body is several meters removed from whatever patch of tar it happens to strike alike, having banged and clanged his way to the ground level by the time the tarry patches of stair catch and climb aflame. Landing face down at the base, Gorehilt only has time enough to look up and roll out of the way of a puff of elemental fire from one of the pillars. Out of the frying pan indeed! Gorehilt orients himself and stands... just in time to spot a new, dim black shape flicker toward him. A bolt from a hand-crossbow. It sticks in his thick brow with a woody "thock" barely audible in the stands, even above the rush of wind. Bright red blood trickles down his tar speckled face in two streams that somehow seem to exaggerate his very, very angry eyebrows. Howling with fury, the enraged ork pounds across the battlefield in a fresh sprint, reinvigorated by orkish bloodlust, and throws his full weight and momentum into a javelin toss. The spear sails upward. Indignant on behalf of its master, the intelligent weapon will fly with seeking intent, hellbent on repaying Cresente for its wounded pride... oh, and for Gorehilt's literal wounds. The evil weapon's malice homes in on the avian.
Cresente has just managed to regain his footing on a platform when Gorehilt’s infuriated howl rings out. Though he was successful in putting distance between the two, it means little without his only reliable ranged weapon, which he can still see the silhouette of in the eye of the storm when lightning cracks across the arena. A second crack of lightning illuminates the spear turned javelin, and Cresente is forced to meet its ill-intent head-on. Just before impact, lightning stikes again, this time making contact on the shelf just above where Crescente stands. The force blackens and shatters most of the brick struck, turning it into shrapnel that the wind carries back towards . Blinded by the light, the avian man is forced to shut his eyes and reach out, gripping the shelf above with both hands and pulling down roughly. The shelf snaps apart between the lightning weakening where it meets the pillar and the force. The spear pierces brick instead of flesh, the tip stopping just shy of his own brow. A curse word leaves his lips as he looks down to where the infuriated orc is. “Want your spear back?” He calls down. With a loosened, he smashes it into the handle of the spear in an attempt to snap it in half, then hurls the brick at him like a projectile. No, that was underwhelming, that wouldn’t do at all. Cresente looks down at the makeshift brick shield, and using the wind and his outstretched wings to help propel him, he leaps off the shelf with the large platform in hand. He twists in the air to gain momentum, and hurls the entire platform at Gorehilt as though it were a flung sandal about to flatten a bug. Crescente draws his sword again from the blind spot, prepared to follow with a criss-crossing slash should the orc manage to dodge or meet the flying platform head-on and survive.
Final Defense:
Gorehilt is really very angry, but he's not angry enough to try and tank an entire brick balcony or whatever it is. He (unlike his sturdy enchanted spear) would break. Discrection is the better part of valor. He might have taken a beating falling down the brick steps of the pillar, but the offending architecture would have its opportunity, now, to repay him the slight. With the crossbow bolt still sticking out of his forehead, Gorehilt ducks behind the pillar for shelter, dipping out of line-of-sight from the platform-turned-projectile and Crescente's divebomb tactics alike. He presses his back to the back to the wet bricks and tries to think over the roaring wind and crashing thunder. Gore knows he can't stay pinned like this forever.
Winner: Cresente
Auto Hit:
Cresente || When the platform bounces and shatters against empty space, so does Cresente, making a barrel roll forward until he is standing again effortlessly. With a flash of lightning cracking the platforms above them again, Cresente rethinks his strategy. Instead of moving in for a wound that could prove fatal, the avian lurches forward and kicks Gorehilt out from hiding, following close behind so that the shelves fall straight downwards onto nothing and leave the bare pillars behind. Crescente grabs the half-orc’s shoulder to spin him around, and with another kick, Cresente pushes Gorehilt onto the ground. Towering over the prone opponent, he raises his sword as though he were about to behead him. The steel of his sword cuts through Gorehilt’s armor like butter with a few decisive swings, but when the armor falls away, there is no blood drawn. Just the carving of a symbol belonging to a long forgotten city. “Attempting to break your weapon was very unsportsmanlike of me. For that, you have my deepest apologies.” Cresente says, low enough for only the half-orc to hear. As the storm dies down, with it clear who has won this, he speaks in a louder voice, “Glory be to the avians.” He calls out, catching the crossbow with one hand and sheathing the sword with the other.
Gorehilt is caught mid-thought. What he was busy trying to strategize, his opponent was busy trying to kill. Aha, lesson learned. Hit first think later. Gorehilt has fresh time to consider this fresh axiom as he sails with the force of Cresente's blow. Landing square on his back, the greenskin guards his face with his arms... only to have his chainmail shuff off around him in a ringing heap. Gorehilt sits up. "Stuff your sorries in a sack." He spits on Cresente's shoe in utter ingratitude and bares his neck. What are you gonna do, kill me? Reacing up, he tugs the bolt out of his skull and tosses it (harmlessly) likewise at his victorious opponent. Well, there's another tournament in the bag. As the reality of his loss settles in, Gorehilt takes several long breaths and wipes his bloodied nose on the sleeve of his torn doublet. "So you got me. Gonna stand there gloating or what."
- Back to Titans of Winter Tournament 2023