Duel:Desparrow v Grailan, Final Match of the 2016 Frostmaw Tournament

Duelists: Desparrow vs Grailan
Duel: Opening posts for scenery, then traditional 3 rounds with final defense, 15 minute posting limit
Stakes: Auto-hit to the winner
Judges: Gilwen and Gunnar

Temple of Judgement

As you come inside the old, dusty, and earthy smelling temple, your eyes dance around in wonder. Along the circular room, you see various plaques among the walls, and among the plaques each glow magical runes. Before the plaques, you see, made of stone, a man kneeled down, weapons in hand, and praying. After close examination, you notice one statue for each class native to Hollow. A warrior, a death knight, a druid, a mage, and all the other trained classes as well are here. Not knowing what the words or runes read, you are forced to wonder what this place could be. As well, you find yourself within a field of light and dark energy as you see shadows of hatred, and souls of kindness entwine above you overhead. The opposite energies of the beings collide and erupt into a vortex of some type, this effect is constant, and never ending. You glance to your east, and to your west and see two halls of some sort, while to your north you see a pair of steps, and to your south you see another area. You may also go down, back into the old caves.

Desparrow appeared at the destination appointed as the grounds for which the final battle of the tournament wearing leather shoes, pants and a tucked in button-up shirt with the collar popped through a portal of his own making. His hair was recently cut, and he had taken a bath of which he still had the lingering scent of vanilla and lavender. Azure hues scanned the room, the giants, the boar and for his opponent with a vague interest. He didn't look dressed for combat, and had taken no stance to signify he even would be a participant.

Grailan had stood. He had stood for a day and night now, in the temple's center like some sort of statuesque -even otherworldly- sentinel. He was clad in black, glossy armor as if it were crafted and forged from obsidian and finished in teh fires of a volcano's smithy; it was platemail that was adorned with sharp spikes and carefully decorated with skull-emblazoned emblems and aesthetics, ivory in hue. A long, dark black cloak spread from his pauldrons and downward to hang just barely from the smooth floor in a constant flutter as if on the remnants of some unfelt wind. It was attached to a hood that hung precariously low over his head, enough so that all but his nose's tip, his mouth, and chin were bathed in shade. One hand held an intricately-crafted handle, of which had three chains attached to it of a similar blackmetal as his armor; they hung taut the length from his hip -where the handle was- to his knee, where each chain was connected to a bowling-ball-sized sphere that was a pale, bone-white, and sculpted like a jawless-skull. Each skull was covered in razor-sharp, deadly spikes. From him emanated a horrible, overwhelming and oppressive aura of despair and sorrow, perpetually, but the Dread Knight said nothing, and did not move.

Desparrow found his eyes drawn to Grailan but still he was viewed with no spark of fire, no motivation to continue this game and fight. For the sake of seeing it through however he found himself raising a hand before he lurched over and letting out a howl of pain. His back bulged outwards in what appeared to be several mal-formed cycsts which was in fact a flood of magic surged to a single point in his body. Holes burst in them venting out the condensed ether into a thick mist around the male and only when his body was drained of all but enough to keep him alive did he feel better. The lack of magic in his flesh made him pale, leaner, more dead than alive as it was his lifelink and had he none, he may very well cease to exist. The lycan’s left eye burst into violet eldritch flame as he tool direct control of the ether with a surgeon’s precision. Ribbons of magic assembled themselves together as opalescent wings on his back, each pinion intricately detailed at least until they started to detach from the wings one by one in quick succession only to be replaced by new ones that continued to reform so long as there was more ether to expend. Each detached pinion elongated into a thin pointed lance and fired at Grailan with no more force or piercing power than a crossbow bolt fired at equal distance. As the boar took interest in the small elven lycanthrope it charged for him but narrowly was able to be dodged by using magic in a pulse to throw himself aside only suffering a thin slice on his chest from a jagged piece of ice on its body. Getting to a stand he continued his assault, firing dozens every few seconds in an endless storm so long as he had magic to expend and it wasn’t going away any time soon.

Grailan was quick to rise, even against the pain in his gut and the continuous blood loss however he was only able to make it to his knees. When the hands came back for him they had managed to grasp the lycan’s neck but didn’t have the power to kill him as he pulled all the excess unused ether back into his body. He filled back up, his flesh saturating and returning to its natural color while he gained a good deal of his extra strength back. With his claws of his good hand he pried beneath one of the hands after making space at the cost of the top layer of skin and ripped it away while the other had to be removed by the claws on his wings. When they were tossed to the ground he began rubbing the bruised areas of his neck while coughing to grasp at the air that was almost taken away from him. As he regained composure he could only return Grailan’s stare, still showing no interest in him or this fight, let alone the result of it. It was merely a waste of his time.

Desparrow was constantly on the move, continuing his assault even has his opponent got closer. It was when Grailan was within striking distance and swung out with the flail that he bothered to give a response being that he was in immediate danger. The fight had no meaning to him but to save himself he took all three spiked heads to a single arm as he reached to grab the chain at the junction where they all met preventing another swing at his body. Pain ripped through his arm as the spikes impaled it, blood oozing through the new wounds but all it elicited from the battle-scarred sorcerer was a low growl through gritted teeth. A single mighty flap of his large ethereal wings and he not only wrenched himself free of the flail at great cost to his arm but also put a large deal of distance between himself, the opponent and the boar, landing with some guidance on the opposing side of the arena. A single small blade of either was made and Des bothered to cut deep into his own decimated arm and slice the major nerve that connected it to his own body so as to prevent the pain from affecting him the rest of the fight, even though it meant that he would not be able to feel it, or use it for some time. As the small scalpel was removed it had also cauterized the wound so as to prevent further blood loss. As the boar came rushing towards Grailan Des’ wings coursed with a red lightning which was given a single command upon contact and when the new electrified pinions fired off they would warp whatever they struck. When they hit the ground the flooring twisted into grotesque formations, the same would happen to anything organic or otherwise, metal bone and flesh twisting, bending and ripping itself apart for the sake of the most painful death that could be achieved.

Grailan knew the boar was charging him as he swung upward and connected with Desparrow's arm in a vicious blow, but there was no contortion of that profound melancholy that seemed forever painted on his face; he neither gave a grim smile nor offered even a grunt of the exertion of effort required for the movement. As it was, however, the Dread Knight's body was mid-stride -at an impossible angle for him to properly brace himself for the boar's crashing route. The undead released hold of his weapon, allowed it to be yanked and flung to bounce against one of those tower shields with echoing impact, in order to try to get to a steady stance. It failed; he hadn't enough time. The boar's snout and tusks were low and struck at the man's legs about the knee area. It actually lofted the large male from the ground and overhead of the animal with an airborne somersault. He landed soundly on his back, but recovered with the sound of his platemail armor clicking together as he rolled to a crouch in the wake of the impact. His dead, pale eyes lifted with his head to see oncoming crimson, and began an abrupt, violent burst of motion in a sprint at his foe. The ground twisted and lurched and lifted and fell, but nimbly -startlingly, considering his size and armor- the cloaked and armored undead with ethereal bolts in arm leapt, rolled, dipped, ducked, dove, and dodged to close the distance in fluid motion between himself and his foe. With a final leap, the male went airborne, with the aim to smash his spiked pauldron and head into the gut and waist of his foe and wrap his arm's around Desparrow's middle -to spear him to the ground where he could grapple with the inferior-sized elf.

Desparrow hadn’t seemed to have gained any interest in this fight the longer it continued and it was true. The effort he was putting towards his opponent was minimal, not desiring to waste his time or his magic on such an inane event and this was very evident on his face. When the boar ran through Grailan it continued its charge straight for the lycan but it wasn’t until the beast was within near goring distance that another flap of those wings was given allowing Des the boon of height advantage to narrowly miss a goring, only to have the flesh of his leg shredded by the edges of the ice on its body into loosely hanging ribbons. In passing the boar had managed to daze itself with a face smash on the tower shields that it ended up charging into while Des had landed on his good leg and favored it up until he was knocked prone by the charging Grailan. The spike of his pauldron would not go so deep due to the fact that with his good hand he was able to offer some resistance with his enhanced strength but not enough to completely save him for it had sank three quarters of its length into his gut but it was merely just another scar. In response to being in such close proximity the wings had begun to morph on silent command, the pinions at the ends elongating and turning into claws made of white hot plasma which reached around to strike at Grailan. They would in their intensity go to rend through armor, flesh, sear through bone and dismember the undead until he was nothing but smoldering parts. The claws moved so fluidly it was as if they were extra limbs, controlled in such a way that in a moment of emergency they would halt if continuing the course of action would end up harming the sorcerer in control.

Grailan , up until the moment of Desparrow's attempt to rip him apart, hadn't really suffered much damage. It wasn't to say that he was superior; it was to say that his lack of injury was about to change. Having taken down his lycan opponent, the Dread Knight's armored (and spiked) body shifted wildly in position as he tried to position himself atop his opponent in a manner that would free his arms. Before he could do so, however, the undead was stricken by those wings-turn-pinions; either arm was shred by them. Lacking any macabre show or spurt of blood, sans any scream of pain or terror, the mournful creature's, arms were -at the shoulder- forcibly and with a sickening sound of tearing flesh, pulled from his torso. Grailan's legs immediately shifted to push backward, off of Desparrow in a backpedaling-crouched-scramble that -without the aid of his arms- ended in the armored wounded fallen back on his spine and the resonating impact of the platemail covering it. Still, it should provide some few yards of distance as a buffer between the armless combatant (who still wore a face of regretful sympathy) and his bored elven counterpart. But, as those that might have witnessed in the Warrior's Guild tourney would know, the Queensguard of Venturil was not incapacitated. He was not out of the fight by a longshot. Those severed arms laid still in their states of detachment for only those few moments, before they, with sudden and haunting explosiveness, sprang into motion; like possessed dolls or rapid vermin they flung from a 'standstill' at Desparrow. Practically sentient in their own fashion, the hands of the Dread Knight continued their fight by trying to reach, wrap around, and choke the life out of Grailan's opponent in means of suffocation -cutting off the air intake of his throat with powerful, dead fingers and palms. The Dread Knight, meanwhile, moved -he sat up from lying on his back with a single and Frankenstein movement without his arms, his glossy and lifeless eyes fixed on Desparrow.

Desparrow was quick to rise, even against the pain in his gut and the continuous blood loss however he was only able to make it to his knees. When the hands came back for him they had managed to grasp the lycan’s neck but didn’t have the power to kill him as he pulled all the excess unused ether back into his body. He filled back up, his flesh saturating and returning to its natural color while he gained a good deal of his extra strength back. With his claws of his good hand he pried beneath one of the hands after making space at the cost of the top layer of skin and ripped it away while the other had to be removed by the claws on his wings. When they were tossed to the ground he began rubbing the bruised areas of his neck while coughing to grasp at the air that was almost taken away from him. As he regained composure he could only return Grailan’s stare, still showing no interest in him or this fight, let alone the result of it. It was merely a waste of his time.

Winner: Grailan

Grailan 's hands used their fingers like anchors of grappling in haunting swiftness, as if out of a nightmare, to pull themselves toward the seated Dread Knight. They moved a startling speed to overcome distance and ascend to refit themselves at the otherwise open and bloodless holes that their absence left in his torso; immediately, the creature was whole once more. To which he rose, that dead gaze fixated upon his bored foe. One of those hands, now re-attached, ascended in order to point his palm toward his opponent; ethereal energy, like the pinions the other used, burst forth in a glowing mass of mercurial darkness and phantasmal blue. It struck and splashed against the middle of Desparrow with a gut-wrenching force that knocked his former opponent clear of his feet and smashing into the tower shields that surrounded them.