Duel:Hildegarde v Zendor, Match 5 of the Inaugural Warrior's Guild Tournament

Duelists: Hildegarde vs. Zendor. 
Duel: Traditional 3 posts each, with final defense. 15 minute posting limit. 
Stakes: Autohit post. Advancement in the Inaugural Warrior's Guild Tournament. 
Judges: Emrith, Leone  & Malyne

Snowless Training Yard

Leone said, "Welcome to the Second 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 derelict building. Winds whip through the structure, causing it to creak and groan, swaying with each gust. Though several stories high, there is little left of the floors save for occasional hole-riddled platform. The platforms are covered in a layer of dust, and look ready to crumble. Crossbeams and posts, some of them decked in dangling rope, are all that remain of the upper heights, staggered and hanging throughout the space like remnant ribs of skeletons. The result is a cramped, obstacle-strewn space that is taller than it is wide. Through the holes in the clapboard, nothing but darkness can be seen, and there is the distinct impression that nothing - not even breathable air - exists beyond the walls. Good luck to both Zendor and Hildegarde!"

Zendor is here standing on one of the sturdy beams, with floors ready to crumble before him and around him, and ropes dangling above and below him. He's clad in his usual armor; various pieces strapped tightly to his form with leather belts and brass buckles. Newly on each thigh is a short sheath, with knuckledusted hilts poking out. Knives, no doubt. He offers his opponent no words before defining for himself his obstacles and his advantages with a brief look about the arena. and in the other a rope. After testing the stability with a couple firm tugs, he leaps out of his position, bounding against one of the walls to his side and beginning a long looping arc towards his friend and enemy. Essentially, he runs along the side with the aid of the sturdy rope. After coming to the threshold between where he would be closer to her and further away from where he was, he rips from a holster one of his knives, and swings towards her with both feet tucked in, and the sharp point of his knife leading the way to Hildegarde. At once he seeks to slip the blade between a joint in her armor, and push her with both feet down into the nothingness.

Hildegarde stood, much like Zendor, upon a sturdy beam. She can already see that he’s missing his usual weapon of choice today, meaning that this fight would be all the more interesting! Yet this lack of familiarity does not deter her or sway her from her determination to beat the pulp out of her friend. As Zendor swings from the beam in a Tarzan-esque fashion, the knight stands her ground until her opponent is tucking his feet together to prepare for the oncoming kick he hopes to deliver. Yet rather than wait for him to kick out at her, the knight huffs and puffs with a building fury before seemingly jogging along the length of the beam and throwing herself out to crash against Zendor as he swung. The knife punched through the mithril plate of her armour and touched her chainmail beneath, perhaps even drawing a whisper of blood. Yet with her combined weight upon the rope, neither of them can swing for long and are forced to drop to a beam below – falling ever closer to the perilously weak platforms – where Hildegarde would attempt to throw a nasty punch against Zendor’s nose, like he had done so many times before to her.

Zendor notices the shift in her stance as he approaches, and adapts his legs' position to wrap around her stomach as he crashes into her, rather than becoming like a stepped-on tin can. Though the impact into his open legs ultimately results in Hildegarde mashing his potatoes, a pain he can only just cope with. But he's forced to relinquish his hold on the rope in favor of his future children. On the way down to the next beam, he uses his upper position and leg placement to manipulate Hildegarde so she's the one under, plummeting first into the beam. He's altogether focused on this act, and unable to defend against her punch, and it caves in that part of his helmet. A torrent of blood almost instantly falls out of him, and his mouth sputters with dark fluid. Slightly dazed, he leans forward into her chest like a baby koala, and reaches into his sheath for his knife's twin. This one he attempts to plunge into her armpit, rather ruthlessly hoping the long point to pierce the chainmail underneath and perhaps slither between a few ribs, while the other stands ready, or sits lazy.

Hildegarde lands on the beam with an ‘oof’ of impact and pain, yet she cannot rest or let her pain distract her from the battle at hand. The ‘shhk’ of metal being drawn from a sheath alerts her to the impending threat that Zendor presents to her and she cannot permit another strike against her person. So with the man atop her, the knight jerks out both hands against his chest to throw him away from her chest and to keep that blade away from her armpit. Although she had pushed him away, she swings her arm in a circular and defensive manner to ward away any potential strike the warrior would make. Assuming he does strike, the metal of his blade would slice through the leather of her glove and the flesh of her hand; blood sprinkling on the beam below them. “Die!” the woman roared viciously, double-stepping forward before kicking her leg out forcibly in an attempt to powerfully launch the warrior from the beam and into the abyss below.

Zendor has nothing to hold onto her with and so she easily pushes him off. Though he gets pushed off, he's minutely satsified by the familiar resistance of flesh against the knife and the slight coppery smell. Though he finds her exclamation a bit harsh, he isn't very sad because he essentially was trying to kill her too. And still, he maintains silence. Now standing on the narrow beam, he has nowhere to run, and has finally learned that he isn't strong enough to muscle her around. Stepping back tentatively and mouth breathing furiously, he glances subtly behind him and shoves his knives into his sheath. He takes her kick in the best way he can, attempting to go with the flow of it rather than resist it, jumping back with arms stretched wide. Hence, he's cast far from the platform with a rib or two of questionable integrity and probable internal bleeding. Luckily, he was able to predict the location of a nearby rope, and used the force of her kick to loop all the way up to one beam above them. She might hear him stalk it above her until suddenly it stopped. The next thing she would hear was the crescendo of his screaming as he came down with a perfectly executed elbow drop, concentrating all of his weight onto the focus of his elbow, and aiming this right for the blue ribbon on her head.

Hildegarde would not wish death upon the man truly, but battle rage is all about the heat of the moment. As Zendor swings away like a king of the jungle, the woman takes her moment to breathe until Zendor comes screaming down towards her. A cautionary step to the side keeps that descending elbow away from her head – and the more precious ribbon – yet doesn’t prevent the elbow from careening into her shoulder: sending her sprawling across the beam. Her stomach and chest are the only things keeping her affixed to the beam there, with the warrior left to balance precariously on her back. Yet the knight is not going to let this slight go. Her hands are grasping at the rope that hangs from the beam she sprawls upon, before flicking it back towards Zendor to hopefully catch against the back of his neck before she jerks it forward viciously and pulls down tightly with a vicious determination to choke the very life out of him.

Zendor is clinging to her, more like a baby gorilla than a koala this time, and more for dear life than a reprieve. He doesn't even want to attack, otherwise they might both might plummet towards darkness and fall forever. But he would die of old age first and thus cause her to win by default which he will not have! While clinging, he feels rope fall on him, and he rushes up a hand trying to get between his neck and the rope. He squeezes in a few fingers before it's yanked. In his last precious seconds, he turns red, then purple, and his tongue waggles and his eyes bulge. But with his other hand he manages to unsheathe a knife. With desperate effort he stabs it into part of his own neck while frantically trying to cut the rope. Once he does, there's nothing left holding him, and he slides down her back, and butt, and legs, until finally his fingers latch onto her knightly footwear. The only thing between him and the abyss being his weakening finger grip and the whim of a dragon.

Winner: Zendor

Zendor dangles for what seems like eternity, but his vice like grip doesn't falter! As soon as he catches his breath, he claws his way up her armor, latching his fingers into any chink he can find until he clambers to the top. He pushes off her head with his hand until he's finally at the top of the beam. And not a second later than she's relieved of his weight, he's scraping one of his knives between her fingers and the beam like a knife into an oyster's shell and kicking at her head to knock her off the beam and send her for a ride. Finally he wedges the knife between her last and mighty pinky finger and she disappears into the dark. Zendor, finally able to rest, lays along a beam and ties himself to it and just breathes.

Hildegarde grunts and groans as Zendor clambers up her armour with the dexterity of a chimp or a mountain goat scaling a sheer wall. With her head shoved, she feels the pressure of the beam upon her throat and can only sputter out a protest. Yet soon the knife is pricking at her skin and practically cutting and prying her loose, like a barnacle off of the hull of a ship. Then she’s falling… falling, falling and not the comfortable falling where she knows she can take flight and soar ever higher. This is the bad kind of falling. She plummets through the broken platforms with a mighty crash, the wood splintering under her mighty weight as she hurtles to the floor below and through the abyss until she lands harshly upon the ground of the training yard with a mighty ‘crack!’. The knight lays motionless upon the arena floor, her skull suffering from a split and oozing blood.