Duel:Grailan v Zendor, Match 7 of the Inaugural Warrior's Guild Tournament

Duelists: Grailan vs. Zendor. 
Duel: Traditional 3 posts each, with final defense. 15 minute posting limit. 
Stakes: Autohit post extra stakes of a direct punch to the face. Advancement in the Inaugural Warrior's Guild Tournament. 
Judges: Alvina, Hildegarde & Baraneth  

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 a verdant paradise - at least at first glance. Stalks of towering bamboo in all manners of different circumferences and heights crowd the arena, soaring up toward a vividly blue, sky. The sun is high in the sky, blindingly brilliant and hot as it hangs over the reedy forest. A prevailing wind blows through the bamboo, causing the stalks to pitch and sway like a ship upon rough seas. Loud, resonating tones erups from the hollow trunks as the wind passes over them, creating a discordant cacophony of noise that never ceases. All bounding extremes of the arena itself have vanished; the forest holds no walls, and is distinctly lacking a floor. Instead, the viridian smears into fathomless blackness below. Good luck to both Zendor and Grailan!"

Zendor brought a surprise with him today, something he'd been saving in case he made it to the third round. A pair of magically enchanted gauntlets! The note says, they strengthen physical powers and stabilize the body. Having never worn them before he's unsure of the extent of their power, so he gives his club a few practice swings. Then he's ready. As soon as the arena disappears and the floor falls out beneath them, he instinctually loops his arm around a wad of bamboo stalks, and plants his feet against a few more while he ascertains Grailan's exact location. For a moment he sways back and forth with the bamboo, to test it's durability. He makes a strategic decision, and unbuckles the straps that hold his pauldrons in place, and the dark things slide off into the abyss. He needs the mobility. Finally, he decides his first move. He lets go of several stalks, and wraps his fingers around the sturdiest one and manipulates his weight backwards. The stalk bends and bends...and then snaps back! Launching him high into the air as he releases the stalk. The trajectory goes mostly as planned, and mid-flight, Zendor is able to compensate for any missed degrees. He arcs just over Grailan, and in passing, heaves his weapon around his head to clobber Grailan in the middle, hoping the daring of his attack might catch him off guard and knock him into the abyss. The human then would crash into the shifting walls of bamboo and catch another bundle in his arm.

Grailan reached away from his body with his left hand to immediately wrap a gauntleted hand around the stalk of the nearest bamboo and, as the ground gave way beneath the combatants, he swung his feet upward to plant the sole of his left boot against the stalk in order to stay aloft like some sort of acrobat. This alien setting, a verdant paradise and deceptively dangerous arena, provided the Dread Knight both weaknesses and advantages; one of the latter was the way that his large, skull-sphered spiked flail hung on a taut steel cord without any ground to take away the momentum it would accumulate. Immediately and predictably, that is the first thing that the Dread Knight began to do by using his other arm of which he held the handle of the weapon to begin to swing the spiked end around in a vertical circle. The prevailing wind pushed along the stalks and caused them to bend, as well as throw off his hood and black cloak to dance upon its remnants in the air as it forevermore descended; a grim expression of a pale face was revealed with dull, dead eyes fixed to Zendor. The discordant cacophany of noise had, profoundly, zero effect on the dead man, who had all the single-mindedness of a zombie; destroy his opponent was his singular and determined goal. Like hawk's pinpoints on a fleeing rodent that grey-hued gaze affixed to Zendor as his flail grew faster and faster with every revolution, and swiftly became a blur of dark color in the shape of a circle that only added to the wailing noise that filled the arena. He watched the other sway while his own bamboo mimicked the antic, but when Zendor took off, Grailan remained put; he was heavily armored, and would not be flinging himself around like a monkey in this fight. As his opponent neared while sailing through the air, the undead twisted his left wrist and straightened his knee, both extremeties anchored to the bamboo stalk, in order to spin backward and around it like some sort of poledancer. The club cleaved through and ripped out long locks of dead and white hair that trailed in the male's wake, but swiftly evasion became counteract. He did not stop in his rotation around the bamboo, but continued as Zendor sailed, to a full circle -with that momentum, his weapon-wielding arm snapped backward to straighten at the elbow, and sent the deadly and brutal sphere after Zendor in attempt to smash it into his back. If he missed or connnected, the male would continue its momentum into another swinging circle as his twirls along the bamboo stalk waned, ebbed, and came to a halt on the other side of the pole and facing Zendor. The flail came across and crashed into the stalks in front of him with a resounding eruption of splinters that felled the stalks; they plummeted straight toward Zendor's form in attempt to swat him from his perch.

Zendor saw Grailan's flail spinning while he was airborne, but was already too committed to his attack to dodge. So he attempts to block, holding out his club defensively to ward against it. But as chained weapons are difficult to measure precisely, he merely ends up impeding the chain, and causing the ball to spin around his bat like a tetherball, winding and spinning until it smacks him in his armored chest. He's winded but he gets the skull in a headlock, letting go of his tangled up club, and detaining Grailan's weapon while he catches his breath. In a moment, it's returned and he formulates a new strategy. He lets go of the bamboo stalks, and truly like a monkey now, drops, using the chained weapon as a vine. When the chain becomes taut, he pulls down with all his might to yank Grailan away from the stalks and to his doom in the darkness below. He hopes their added weights will at least break the stalks Grailan's on, but he understands the risks.

Grailan was a creature of melancholy; his expression did not become self-satisfied, frustrated, neither angered nor delighted by the way that the spiked skull-sphere of his flail was crashed into and caught against the chest of his human and acrobatic adversary. Instead, his expression remained enthralled in that profound sadness of remorse and pity, unable to feel anything but. It was an odd contrast, almost comical, however, to witness that expression in accompaniment to his movements and attacks; they were swift (as quick as one with heavy armor could be, at any rate) and not bogged down by the apparent emotion he felt. This was made evident in the way that his foot left the bamboo stalk and then caught its hollow trunk with the crook of both of his knees as he used incredible core strength to hold himself aloft as well as Zendor -currently hanging from the dead man's flail like a grasping leech. With one hand freed, he continued to go with the momentum of his opponent's swing, and used his vacated and gauntleted hand to tear his dark, obsidian-hued pauldron from his opposite shoulder. Now sans armor support at the shoulder of the arm holding his weapon and anchoring his swinging opponent, Zendor's abrupt pull caused a disgusting ripping noise to cut against the cacophony of noises that the wind made as it swayed the combatants, and the Dread Knight's arm ripped right off. There was no blood, no cry of pain, just a determined stare from Grailan as he watched Zendor's plummet begin with his flail and his severed arm, nothing more anchoring the human to the undead. Simultaneous to his watching, the male began to strip away armor, letting pieces fall forevermore as he exposed more and more of bloodless, well-sculpted and pale muscles on his torso, until his body was bare from waist up.

Zendor was prepared for the risk of falling, but not for getting old zombie blood rained on him. It splashed on his helmet, chain shirt, and bare arms. Still the only expression his face shown was the angry countenance of his helmet. Zendor had anticipated this, and on his way down into the abyss, he spread his arms and legs out like a confused squirrel who thought he could fly. When he did luckily catch a bamboo stalk, it smacked him very ironically up the middle of his body, scrambling his eggs in a most painful way. He weakly wrapped his limbs around the stalk and started sliding down. He was almost submerged in darkness when he finally caught a sure grip, and then he began making his way back to Grailan's bamboos. But far under them. Hoping the darkness might shield him from vision, he ties his legs around one cluster of stalks, and then reaches out to ensnare another pile in his arms. Then like a ridiculous struggling inch worm, he ruthlessly shakes them all! The vibrations started off low, but then they started to grow! Reverberating all the way up to where the dread knight was until a surprising number of stalks were all flailing like they were caught in a twister! Hopefully he would send Grailan off into space.

Grailan stared downward in that melancholy determination with his grim countenance unchanged, watching Zendor until he could see his opponent no more. More agile now with his torso bare of platemail, the Dread Knight's body visibly tensed muscles to ripple beneath taut, pale skin as he held on to bamboo with the crook of both knees, his remaining arm and hand lightly grasping the stalk further up along the pole only for added balance rather than anchorage. What Zendor did not realize was that, although severed, that gauntleted hand that had plummeted with him was not as useless as one might think. As if sentient on its own, it too twisted mid-flight after Zendor caught himself, to release the handle of the flail and catch the stalk of the bamboo even further down. And thus began an eerie, haunting, and ultimately creepy crawl of those fingers contorting over one another inch by inch to pull the appendage upward and trail after the unsuspecting combatant. The undead himself, on the other hand, was determined to wait, but that was soon a foolish idea; the bamboo that held him, as well as those around him, rattled and shook until they violently swung in all directions, and the legs of the male could no longer hang on. Grailan was flung from his perch bodily, smacked mid-air violently by at least three more bamboo stalks that flung side to side, which shifted his direction abruptly a number of times, before he was able to grasp one in the crook of his arm-pit and wrap both arm and leg around it to hold on. As this all happened, likely snapping and breaking bones and causing ribs in the undead to poke out of the dead skin, that hand had approached from beneath, and tremendously launched itself upward like some sort of alien spider with every intention of wrapping its fingers around Zendor's throat and choking him to death, tirelessly and relentlessly.

Zendor had no idea what was about to happen to him, or what was happening to Grailan. His only idea was shake, shake, shake. But after a while that got tiring, and he ended up spinning so his belly was up, and he used his arms to support him like a hammock while he sweated. He saw the hand. It looked like it was moving...but it couldn't be. It had to be just the wind and the swaying bamboo stalks casting illusions over him. But it was getting closer. It seemed curious in a way, like a timid animal testing the demeanor of it's new provider. And then like a timid animal with rabies, the hand launched itself a Zendor at speeds of at least 50 hands a second (why use any other measurement?)! Taken completely by surprise, he's choked by dismembered hand and relinquishes his hammock hold on the branches. His legs keep him suspended, tangled as they are about the other stalks, and he instantly starts a life or death game of bloody knuckles with Grailan's hand. Punching his hand repeatedly with his own. At last he has the wits to peel Grailan's fingers off his neck one by one. He then grabs the hand by the neck (forearm), and heaves it far away. Zendor mean while, springs from stalk to stalk in the other way, having never been so frightened.

Winner: Grailan

Grailan watched as Zendor began to bound away, still beholden a melancholy expression as he stared despite bones sticking out of his chest and ribs. As if not at all affected by the pain such wounds should bring, the pale Dread Knight leapt from his perch in an aerial path perpendicular to that of the human's. Their flings throw the air collided mid flight, where Grailan single hand and fist resonated in a powerful punch that crashed hard against that helmet, likely damaging it, in a completely blindsiding punch to the face.