Duel:Helich v Silex
Helich vs. Silex
Judges: Rheven, Jacklin. Winner: Silex, unanimous.
Helich flew high in the bright blue sky, his wings occasionally cutting against the way as he maintained a consistent square pattern in flight above his foe. The ancient dragon was at about three hundred feet in the air, and slowly he began a circular descent down toward where Silex stood. The illusionist had a look of concentration in his eyes while mana swelled within him like a bubble. As the saurian creature approached one hundred feet he dove down, cutting through the wind as if he meant to attack Silex with his gaping maws - yet as he was about forty feet, and moving in very fast, empathic and illusionary powers shot out. Twenty feet away now, and the attack sought to invade Silex's mind, his heart, to decimate his moral - illusions tweaking with empathic abilities to attempt to force the deepest sorrow that Silex had ever felt upon the man. While this was occuring the saurian had pulled himself back up into the air, barely missing Silex by perhaps ten feet - and was coming around again for another diving attack. Not the most agile of dragons, as one could see from his movements, as he approached twenty feet again Silex may feel the slight tingling on every inch of skin, that tingling would soon turn to an unbearable pain - the male sought to enforce illusionary needles upon the terramancer. He began to climb high into the skies again, and as he does so - the effects his second attack would dissipate, while his first would linger.
Silex dropped to his knees as suddenly his skin felt a tingling sensation of untold pain. Hands now go to clasp each side of his head, the obsidian staff obstructing his right hand from accomplishing its mission as he shakes his head from side to side. Visions of moral depravity and of a world full of water flashed into his psyche, placing him on the brink of complete and utter insanity. A shadow. Yes. There was a shadow! Whether it was upon sea of water or the sea of sand, the unmistaken identity of something looming high above shot to the troubled gaze of the terramancer as his eyes perked open for a moment. Slowly, the tingling was giving way and slowly the staff of black lowered itself to a perpendicular position with its wielder. Now focusing with renewed vigor at the recognizing of something ominous high above, Silex quickly arched the item into a somersault before it landed with its tip upon the bed of sands, other end still firmly gripped by the mage. Without a moment's notice, thousands of particles of sand suddenly shot straight up at breakneck speeds, each piercing particle hoping to drive whatever looms above away or at least even the playing field. The mage's left hand remains on his head, though the mirage in his mind seems to be unhurriedly giving itself away to the torturous landscape that this scene has begun upon.
Helich leveled out at about one hundred feet and resumed the square pattern he had taken to before - left eye constantly tracking the foe below. An annoyed look appears within his gaze as that left orb suddenly notes a shaft of sand approaching from below him. An irritant, but nothing more, as instead of fleeing the onset of mineral particals - that did nothing against the powerful draconic scales he posessed except bounce off, as most sand would - he dove down into the shaft of sand disappearing into it, and heading directly toward Silex once more. His foe would note the return of despair growing stronger again where once it had lingered, the stabbing needles seeking to drive the man to the ground in pain. A concentration renewed entered his gaze as this time empathic and illusionary grace swelled - his prior attack being cast aside, it began to dissipate - even as this attack begin. It sought to not only tear the man's mind out of his head, but to decimate his ability to properly focus on reality. A blinding move, all the man would see around him if he suceeded was black. This time the attacking needles were altered, as he approached ten feet away - in an instant they were not only illusionary, but if they were believed, they would draw blood. Every inch of his skin would feel the probing. A needle waiting to pierce skin - the illusionist even went so far as to try and trick Silex's mind into seeing dimples in his skin before his blinding attack that would make the human think that in fact their were thousands of real invisible needles prepared to strike into his skin.
Silex dropped to his knees again as the visions that danced in his head regained their focus, the world of water such a nightmare to the mage of earth. Now, all about him, the illusion of piranhas nipping at his skin began to play themselves out upon this wearied and worn man. Rivulets of blood were beginning to show up from various pores of his body, though there were no visible cuts that broke the skin. It appeared as if he was simply bleeding out from underneath the follicles of his hair as a line of crimson drew itself slowly out of his left nostril. Then, there was that shadow! Mustering, nay, willing with supreme effort to come to a stand, all the while batting away at the fishes with the razor-sharp teeth, the mage looked down and saw he was only upon a small piece of land. Taking up his staff once more, Silex closed his eyes and envisioned what needed to happen if he were to fight back this sea of water from swallowing him whole and becoming a snack for those thousands of predators within its bounds. Within seconds, a mountain with a very distinct peak burst out of the water, its girth growing in leaps and bounds with each passing millisecond. The terramancer jumped to his left, narrowly missing this driving tip but ensured that it was heading straight for that shadow that flew over the lapping waves. In reality, the sands were giving way to the next earth layer beneath it, sending truly a rocky peak squarely towards Helich in hopes of skewering the dragon and ridding the mage of these maddening illusions.
Helich had been ascending through the earth once more. This time much more slowly, with eyes narrowed not only in concentration, but in weariness. It was obvious by the saurian creatures sluggish motions he had exausted himself on those three complex spells and felt content to leave this fight alone - which one may notice by the fact he was heading directly southward. Arrogance tricked his mind into thinking he had crushed his foe, yet he had bounced back and before the man could react sandstone earth had squarely and intensely hit him in the belly. Again his scales ensured his safety, if barely, stopping the tip of the peak from skewering him whole - only a four inch incesion, which equated to about the final layer of a human's skin just before muscle. A roar of pain, feral, deafening, left his maw as he rolled off the peak weakly, and slid down the base of the mountain - occasionally summersaulting - until he smacked ferociously with the ground below. Weakly he stood, narrowed his tired eyes upon the human. Spreading his wings to fly, instead he decided to save himself the physical strain of flight plus magic and instead focus intently on one more illusionary attack that would surely scour the terramancer away. It took the remaining amount of mana he had, a mix of his three prior attacks plus one more - a weak attempt at controlling his mind. So while the man saw himself on an endless sea, getting attacked by pirahnna (if the attack worked) with such low morale -- the illusionist attempted to simulate a suicidal tendency within him. An overwhelming yearning to end his own life, to take it. Overwhelming as the emotion was, he knew his attack to be weak and one he could not hold for long.
Silex cried out in horror as his mind played out the peak rising but propelling the man into the sea with the fishes. Swimming as best he can, and for those outside of the illusion this would have provided some humor, the terramancer feverishly paddled in hopes of escaping the piercing attacks of the piranhas. However, as hard as he stroked, he could not escape those quick paced predators that tore at his skin at will, his body bleeding profusely all over, inside and outside his mind. Morale on the edge of complete submission to this fatal position, Silex turned to face a sudden swelling of these fishes as if preparing to succumb to the inevitable. He would not, though, go down without a fight he told himself. Aiming the obsidian staff towards the bulge of brutal fish, a last spell erupted into his mind and it soon began to play the swan song of this mage. The minerals within the salt water, the very salt itself, began to pool and collect upon itself, as it creating a form of cement that would not only make swimming impossible but crush anything that might be within these illusionary waters. First, it attacked the fish, making sushi quickly of them as their innards splayed about and went squirting upward out of the once liquid waters. Quickly, it rendered the remnants of the remaining sea of water, solidifying the entire area in one fowl swoop. Silex closed his eyes, preparing as well to be squashed by the imposing forces of the minerals combining as he took in what could be his last breaths. Outside of the illusionary forces upon the man's mind, the sea of sand was quickly becoming a single, solid sheet of rock, capable of squashing any form that was foolish enough to be upon its shining landscape.
Helich’s eyes widen in surprise as a sheet of rock suddenly begins expanding like a nova in all directions. All spells were dropped, as a rare fear entered his gaze and he sluggishly turned to fly away - getting airborne just in the nick of time before he would have been squished. The saurian was fleeing the sheet of rock now, while trying to ascend higher than the rock itself was - but the long and tiring battle had worn him out mentally and physicall, and soon the sheet caught up to him and plummeted him back to the ground below. It occured just as the sheet had stopped moving, sending the dragon several feet - flailing through the air wildly - to land in the sand below on his side. He made no attempt at getting up, and soon from the blunt force of that final attack he was rendered unconcious.
Rheven's Mage Tournament (2010)