Duel:Emrith v Zendor, Match 6 of the Inaugural Warrior's Guild Tournament

Duelists: Emrith vs. Zendor. 
Duel: Traditional 3 posts each, with final defense. 15 minute posting limit. 
Stakes: Autohit post extra stakes of a permanent scar from auto-hit. Advancement in the Inaugural Warrior's Guild Tournament. 
Judges: Gevurah & Leone  

Snowless Training Yard

Leone said, "Welcome to the Final Round of the Inaugural Tournament of Warriors! Here we gather in the arena of Frostmaw to watch two noble warriors do battle. The arena's orbs have been tweaked and turned to precisely the right calibration until the scenery is wholly alien. The arena has been transformed into space: The final frontier (ok, not really). The arena has been turned into an open field of clouds, with the vast reaches of the night sky stretching overhead in an encompassing dome. There are no other light sources, and the moon is new. The clouds are springy underfoot, and sink slightly with every step before rebounding with double the force delivered upon them. It seems tonight is perfect for stargazing: a meteor shower is beginning, and as contestants are given the go-ahead, flaming balls of ice and gases begin to rain down upon the battlefield. Not only should participants be aware of the stars as they are falling, but they also need to watch out for the celestial balls of flame bouncing back! Good luck to Emrith and Zendor!"

Emrith takes a moment to acquaint himself with the alien landscape, green eyes scanning the peculiar vista all around him. They quickly hone in on the warrior nearby, and immediately the elf's face adopts a grim expression as he begins to move. He is dressed in ensorcelled chainmail that does not clink or clatter, and his sable cloak spills down his back like an inky waterfall. His customary chain belt cinches his waist, and two crossed shortswords grace his back above the cloak. On his outstretched left arm is a leather glove, and perched upon this gauntlet is a large grey hawk, eyes ticking avidly to and fro. As he moves, Emrith soon discovers that the clouds underfoot make no sound when stepped upon; more to his surprise, they seem to push his body upward a little at every footfall. Breaking into a bounding run toward Zendor, Emrith taps the runed bit of jade at his throat, activating the light-bending illusion which makes him extremely difficult to see. At the same moment, he twists his other arm and looses the hawk, who flies into the sky and begins to circle. It is only now that he notices the balls of fire raining periodically down around the battlefield, then ricocheting heavenward again upon impact. This will have to be played carefully. Still running, Emrith leaps soundlessly into the air and, without making a single noise, unclasps his belt, which is in truth a whip set with metal studs at random intervals along the chain. He flies well over Zendor's head, torques in midair so that he faces the warrior's back, then drops, tapping the runes in his boots just before he hits the clouds. He does not bounce, but lands on an invisible plane scant inches above that springy surface. From here, the elf's attack is swift and uncomplicated. He snaps the whip out toward Zendor's neck from behind, bunches the muscles of his arm and clenches his fist to tighten that throttling grip. If the warrior is not fortunate, he may be choked into senselessness long before he can react.

Zendor is here with a sturdy helmet that obscures his face, pauldrons strapped to his body with leather straps and buckles, soft pants, and spiky shinguards. The chainmail he's usually wearing is covered with a very-red shirt, and there's evidence of a large reconstruction. He has one mithril bracer on his left hand. At each of his thighs are two twin knives; stabbing weapons with knuckle dusters to empower his favorite technique: the punch to the face. Once the arena is changed, he takes a moment to become familiar with it, bouncing on the cloud to test its springiness. It's almost too dark to see; the light coming mostly from the occasional comet or meteor. Once the two fighters are unleashed, Zendor eyes Emrith from the dark holes in his helmet, daring him to make the first move. And then Emrith apparently vanishes. Zendor scans the area carefully but quickly, with unblinking eyes, bouncing lightly on the clouds to maintain mobility and stance. His only signal of Emrith's movements is a vague anomaly in the air above him, illuminated by a passing meteor. Assuming that this must be his foe, and predicting his trajectory based on the subtle hint, Zendor spins and on instinct raises his guard. The whip snaps across his left wrist, smacking him across his blue-iron cheek before wrapping itself tightly. Tracking the chain to its wielder, Zendor recognizes the anomaly ever-better, and instantly jerks the whip back, intending to pull Emrith with it. Being off the ground and thus having almost no friction, Emrith might zip straight toward Zendor, who is winding up his fist, to hit him with one meteoric haymaker.

Emrith is not expecting Zendor to react this adroitly. The whip catches, but not around Zendor's neck, as the elf had intended. When the warrior yanks, Emrith does indeed come within range of the man's punch, but elven instincts quite possibly save his life. He is able to let go of his end of the whip and bend his head back just in time to take the man's vicious punch on his opposite shoulder, numbing his arm. The extent of the true damage is something Emrith is not yet sure of, but now is not the time to stop and ascertain it. Stumbling back from the impact, he uses his boots to push himself away even faster, jetting across the cloud-surface without a sound. Before he can get too far out of range, the spell-blade comes to a stop, casts his left hand out with fingers spread and casts a small dart of lightning toward the trailing end of the whip he had previously dropped...a whip whose other end is quite likely still snugged tightly around the armoured warrior's wrist. Emrith is forced to leap to his right to avoid a streaking mini-meteor, and now he dismisses the enchantment in his boots in order to better use the clouds to advantage. Celerity has ever been one of the graces of sylvankind, and even though his right arm is still tingling and next to useless, a near-invisible agile elf on a springy surface is a lethal opponent. He draws Nahr into his uninjured left hand, masking the sound with an ear-splitting whistle. Bouncing and bobbing, sprinting and slashing, he charges toward Zendor in a veritable whirlwind of attacks, utilizing wind stance in perhaps its most natural means to harry his foe. Nahr glows blue, and Zendor may see fflashes of colour as the elf attacks, but this is a ruse; this shortsword's blade is quite hot to the touch. Emrith is using the clouds and his natural reflexes to strike as often, as hard and as ffast as he can, leaping where it seems prudent in order to deliver punishing downward strokes of his sorcerous weapon. The heat may add up, even if Zendor's flesh is not repeatedly scored by the sword. And if neither blade nor heat should fell his foe, Emrith is counting on the warrior being distracted too much by his onslaught to mind the small meteors occasionally peppering the battlefield. Another threat descends from on high: the dire-hawk dives like a thunderbolt, harried by the spell-blade's whistling call, intent on rending any of the human's flesh it can snare with its terrible beak and talons.

Zendor feels his first punch connect, and allows Emrith to retreat with no pursuit. As he is completely unwitting, Emrith is able to shock the cord connecting to Zendor, and zaps him, causing Zendor to shake and smoke for a few seconds. He's left with a tingling sensation and an arrhythmic heartbeat. Before he's able to regain his senses, Emrith is already on the attack again. Zendor's familiar with the enchantments on Emrith's blades, and has no intention of allowing them to connect. A brief glance behind him tells him scores of information, and Zendor bounces back lazily, allowing Emrith to pursue him. Several of the blows he blocks with his quick hands and weapons, several he dodges.Sometimes bouncing above horizontal slashes. But it's only a matter of time before he's unable to block one, and his left arm is slashed, and would be opened, except that it's almost instantly cauterized by the intense heat. Zendor has been leading Emrith to what the human hopes will be his doom however, and once Emrith leaps in the air, Zendor seizes his opportunity, dropping one blade and stopping Emrith's downward stroke by catching him on the wrist with a tight grip. He falls to the ground and tries to hurl Emrith backwards, into a sizable meteor that had been making its way toward them, and which Zendor had been tracking. Having no regard for the hawk, it comes and ruthlessly attacks a defenseless Zendor, who is luckily armored, but some talons manage to slip into the helmet's eyesockets like fingers in a bowling ball. Before Zendor can react, the hawk is carrying it away like a jerk, and Zendor's left with scratched brows and a puzzled look.

Emrith is attacking for all he is worth, lost in the tempests of wind stance. He is paying as much attention to his environment as he can while he pursues Zendor across the rubbery cloudscape, but one's attention can only be spread so thinly. Suddenly, the elf feels his sword-arm seized at the wrist, immobilizing the weapon during a downstroke. he reacts with desperation borne of terror as he sees the streaking meteor in front of him. As Zendor falls and attempts to throw the elf past him and into the trajectory of the meteor, Emrith unhinges his legs and seat-drops onto the clouds. This has the desired effect of slowing his forward progress; instead of being directly in harm's way, he is hit with icy splashback that causes the skin of his face intense agony. Zendor has released his arm, and Emrith still has his sword clutched in one hand. He vaults to his feet and springs nimbly backward toward the downed warrior, using every bit of the alacrity remaining to him. The muscles in his legs are beginning to tire, and his right arm has begun to awaken, sending bolts of pain all throughout his right side. There is a peculiar haze in his vision as well, courtesy of his near-brush with the falling meteorite. He cannot muster the same theatrical display as before, but his cloak is still fastened, and the afterglow from this close might be enough to have dazzled Zendor's own eyes, particularly since that unlucky man has now been divested of his helmet. As such, Emrith trusts to simple physics and momentum to finish this bout once and for all. At the apex of his backward leap, he spins left and cleaves downward with his left arm, sawing his elbow in across his chest to bring Nahr in a diagonal slash which will hopefully cleave Zendor from groin to collarbone if it connects squarely. Better yet, the hawk has realized that its prize is not tasty, and swoops in for another pass at Zendor's now-unprotected face, shrieking shrilly as it comes. Emrith is hoping that the hawk will serve as adequate distraction to the weakened warrior; his own attack is potentially lethal, but rather inelegant, and the airborne elf is reaching the end of his endurance.

Zendor rises to his feet quickly, bouncing right off his back. He is luckily not as worn out as Emrith, having been mostly stationary and on the defensive the entire time, but he carries his share of wounds as well. Though, his last move didn't work to expectation, he's undaunted, and feels alert to every trick Emrith might have in store, and still has some of his own. Not expecting Emrith to be back so soon however, and now with only one weapon, he's on defense again. The slash on Zendor's already heat softened weapon causes the blade to be severed from the hilt, and goes fairly cleanly through Zendor's armor, causing a gash similar to the one Emrith created before in a scar. Hearing the hawk coming, and unwilling to fall for the same trick, he launches out his hand and grabs the dirty bird by its ankles, and then ruthlessly uses it as a weapon to hit Emrith with, with the bird's beak the focus point for the momentum like the end of a flail.

Emrith feels Nahr strike home just as his feet slam against the yielding surface of the clouds below. He bounces back up, propelled further away from Zendor as the man grabs his hawk by its ankles and swings it for Emrith. Needless to say, the bird is outraged at this treatment, and Emrith drops his weapon rather than have the bird tear one of his eyes out in its fury. That gauntletted arm acts as a barricade between the bewildered bird and the elf's face, and the bird's body thunks against the spell-blade's leather-clad arm. Thin rills of blood spill along this upraised appendage as beak breaks leather, but even a large hawk, with its hollow bones and relatively brittle body, makes a poor flail when compared with the real thing. Left arm bleeding, right arm numb and with the skin of his face feeling stretched and tight, the elf uses the last of his reserves to hop away from the warrior, lowering his torn arm to his side once he is out of range of the now mortally-wounded hawk in Zendor's clutches. He keeps his stinging eyes alert for more falling meteors, and dodges two as he retreats to a safe distance, meaning to regroup; if need be, he can tap the runes upon his boots in order to spare his legs further strain, but one way or another, this battle is coming to a close.

Zendor wins.

After dropping the poor bird (who had it coming), Zendor springs off the clouds into the air, and stabs his remaining half-bladed knife into a bounding meteor like a corn holder. The frequency of these things bouncing and falling about has come to a catastrophic climax by now, and Zendor pushes off another, much heftier one, with his powerful legs, causing both masses to become displaced. He sails through the sky, plummeting down towards Emrith at a trajectory that is apparently failing it's target by a wide margin. Zendor and the celestial boulder both plunge into the trampoline-esque cloud. Before rebounding, Zendor shoves both hands under it, and pushes just enough to alter its trajectory so it erupts toward Emrith with unforgiving speed. Even still, it only grazes Emrith's head and knocks him onto the poofy clouds. Leaving no chance for a recovery, Zendor pounces and ties one of his now burning hands around Emrith's neck. There's burns for both of them, but Zendor finishes by punching Emrith once in the face. Seeing him still conscious (and therefore dangerous), Zendor punches him once more and knocks him out. There's a hand shaped burn mark left on Emrith's neck, as well as some human skin. Afterwards Zendor can be seen blowing his hands off desperately.