Duel:Iintahquohae v Mathollak, Round 1, 2020 Hero of Freedom Championship
Duelists: Iintahquohae vs Mathollak Duel: Traditional 3 rounds with final defense, 15 minute posting limit. Stakes: Auto-hit to the winner. Judges: Magik, Meri, Vexar
Larket Arena
The arena, like the rest of the city of Larket under Jacklin and Parsithius' rule, has grown in size and splendor. The circular building's walls rise even higher now, to make room for the orderly rows of steps that ascend all the way up to the open top of the arena. Gladiatorial games still seem very popular among the citizens of Larket, for the building is rarely, if ever, empty. The floor is stone, covered with sand, that is replaced regularly to rid the area of the blood-soaked clumps that mark where a fighter has died. The gladiators seem to come in from doors that lead down, into barracks, while spectators file in from both north and south, moving along huge walkways that exit into the stands. The banner of Larket hangs over the arena, where the glory of the city is displayed daily.
Introduction Round
Iintahquohae emerges from the holding area for combatants below, apparently dressed for the wrong sport. She enters the arena wearing not her usual all black attire, but a pair of blue baseball cleats, matching blue cotton pants with red leather knee pads and leg guards as well as a matching pinstriped jersey with a red, long sleeved shirt padded at the elbows with leather worn beneath it. The seamstress appears to be a Cenril Cubs fan, judging by the backwards cap on her head that hides away her box braided hair. Strapped in a crossed formation upon her back are a pair of iron baseball bats, while she rests the length of a third one across her shoulders, holding it with one gloved hand while she walks. Sigils and runework have been carved into the bats, a mixture of crude and elegant markings that travel along them from the handle's knob to the barrel's end cap. Some of the markings oddly, are carved entirely through the iron, revealing that each bat is actually hollow until you reach the grip. The bats whistle as she walks when they catch the breeze. In her other hand, she hand carries a cotton drawstring bag with a trio of baseballs of course, though if one were to peer inside, each ball has been carefully picked apart and re-laced, embroidered with various colored threads and material with magical intent. Her face is obscured with a red catcher's mask, though for now it is lifted up and out of the way. She sets the bat held in her hand down on the ground along with the bag of balls. Her hand reaches into a pants pocket for two things – a sharpened pin plucked from one of the pincushions left at her shop and a clam shell mirror that she flicks open. With mirror held in her non-dominant hand to check her reflection, the seamstress sticks out her tongue uses the pin to carefully create shallow cuts upon its surface, wincing with each stroke. Pinpricks of blood appear, filling in the shallow lines of the rune she has carved there, then she closes her mouth to let the blood and her saliva pool together, tossing pin aside and pocketing the mirror.
Mathollak walks to the arena's bleachers guiding the hunched old orc Papa Thrug by the arm. Of course his dad is in the front row, right behind where Mathollak would begin the fight. "Need anything else? Beer popcorn?" But his dad was cranky...almost all the time now. Just generally irritable. Mathollak forgot, but he knows he shouldn't have asked, he should've just got them and left them available. So he does! He fills up the seat next to Thrug with snacks and loads up a tray with drinks and leaves it. "Alright I'll be fighting soon," he says as he leans his armored hands against the guard rail. A dismissive grunt. Mathollak pulls himself up and over the railing and lands heavily on the sands of the arena. He whispers a prayer to Delisha. "My love, I got in another fight. You know how it is, fame, fortune, fans. I need it all! So I gotta win, and I'm never stronger than when I taste your sweet, sweet love, babe. Don't worry I'll get you later, okay? Thanks." A few moments go by. Then the ground at Mathollak's feet begins to glow red, then melt, until its a tiny puddle of lava. An imp crawls out of it holding a small wooden box emblazoned with a heart and a golden triangle. "Ahh beautiful." He takes the box as the lava puddle disappears leaving no trace, and puts its contents into his mouth between his gum and his lip. Delisha's divinely delicious chewing tobacco. In seconds, the magic reveals physiological effects on his body. His mouth turns radioactive green, and his eyes do too, they glow even in the dark pits of his horned helmet. The spiked gauntlet and bracer on one hand seems to warp and fuse to his skin, turning it into a monstrous claw. He calls out to Inks, his voice deeper and somewhat ethereal, "You ready for class, slugger?"
Environmental Challenge
The challenge that our combatants are faced with today is not easily discernible and would not present itself until the fight was officially underway. At first glance, one might lulled into a sense of ease as the arena is not flooding and filling with crocodiles nor are there any massive statues positioned one it's sand-covered stone floor. All seems well, it seems like a very vanilla set up today with no extra bells and whistles, right? Wrong. It would be hard for the duelists to see this due to the layer of sand covering the arena's stone floor, but there are several small holes within the floor of the arena. As the first combatant begins their attack, metal spikes are going to erupt from these hidden holes. These spikes are made of iron and are about three-feet in height. They'll easily be able to pierce the soles of most footwear, duelists will have to be particularly aware as they brawl across the floor lest they may have a limb severely punctured by one of these iron spikes. There is no pattern to the spikes, sometimes they emerge close to the duelists and sometimes far away.
Duel
Iintahquohae picks up the baseball bat she put on the ground and shoulders the pack of magicked baseballs once the match begins, then dashes to the left. While running, hugging the wall of the arena, she takes stock and begins formulating a plan of attack. She feels the sand beneath her rumble and jumps back, just in time as a great spike juts outward, but not soon enough. The spike cuts through the sole of one of her cleats, creating a clean line from heel to toe. The appearance of it momentarily makes her lose focus, and she decides perhaps it may be best to stay grounded. She did bring a long ranged weapon after all. Dropping the bag of balls before her feet, she yanks one out – red leather laced with twined threads of yellow, orange and red. A fireball, it appears. The enchanted ball is tossed skyward while she changes to a batter's stance, the iron bat in her hands whistling as she swings. The intent of the sigils carved through the bat are revealed. Amplify the force of her swing, send the ball far. Far enough to hit the green Axe of Love. An audible crack echoes through the arena as the bat meets the ball sending the red ball in an arc, bursting into flame upon contact of her target or the sandy floor. She decides to stay rooted in one place, reaching into her bag for a second ball to swing again.
Mathollak takes note of what happens when she moves, spikes burst from invisible holes in the floor! So it would be a wise short term strategy to stand still. The first seconds into the fight, that was proving very effective, he did not get impaled. But the fireball coming at him forced his hand, or his legs, actually. In a split second, he calculated that it was coming right for him, and fast. Fueled by his divinely enhanced reflexes, he dove to the ground flat on his belly. As he feared, he heard the rumbling of metal gears below him and he rolled over onto his back. A jiffy later the iron spike burst from the ground just under his armpit, scratching his breastplate while the baseball sailed over him. He invented an excuse to be prone so early in the match, and raised his ugly claw over his head as it became wreathed in bright green goo. Then he shoved it into the ground, just under the iron spear and wrenched, yanking the entire thing out like a cavity. He got to his feet, took two steps forward and flung his arm over his head like the bar of a mouse trap to hurl the javelin right toward Inks' lower body, The entire thing coated in a corrosive goo to melt her. Or maybe just the floor she walked on.
Iintahquohae ;; Realizing what is coming for her, Iintahquohae has two options, both of which involve abandoning her remaining balls. Lean into Mathollak's spike throw, swing once it collides with her and lose a bat, or attempt to jump back against the wall behind her and evade. Goodbye baseball bat. She turns the bat horizontally before her to crouch, one hand on the barrel while the other remains on the grip. As her bat takes the brunt of the hit, she pushes against the spike, digging her cleats into the sandy floor below, bending the iron bat and essentially creating footholds on either side that she leaps onto. The sheer force of Mathollak's spike throw makes her slide back before the leap, narrowly pinning her between the spike and the wall behind her, but she uses her bent bat as leverage to leap onto the spike itself. She tries to run across the entire length of the spike, but as she notices herself shrink slightly due to the cleats being melted by Mathollak's goo, she has to springboard off of the spike, onto the uncharted, sandy floor just a short distance from him. The bottoms of her cleats are melted through, socks eaten away, but left hand reaches behind her to release the second baseball bat. The blood-tinged saliva she collected in her mouth is spat out, now useless. The magic lay in the sigil on her tongue, and as she exhales and air passes over it, a faint yellow glow appears. Breath and the air just before her whistle, and she gives her bat a sharp swing directly at the Axe of Love. The air and breath the bat cuts through whistles, amplified by her runes and magicked bat, sending a gust of wind toward her opponent to knock him back, hopefully into hidden spikes..
Mathollak spits out some of his magic tobacco into a gross pile next to him as he begins to advance slowly, wary of death traps, when Iintahquohae swings a bat at him. Nothing but whistles? "Strike one!" He calls out, before suddenly being hit with a tremendous force of air. If it wasn't for his armor, he'd be completely head over heels, tumbling backward. But he has the weight to withstand a portion of it, and digs his massive claw into the ground. The wind picks up, his helmet flies off, and he's blown a fair distance back leaving sharp grooves where his claw scraped into the sand, finally he stops himself when he finds the hole from the spear he yanked out earlier. He's doing fine until the imp minion he summoned earlier is picked up in the wind and flies into his face, the surprise causing him to release his grip and at last he tumbles right onto his back. An enormous metal spike erupts from the ground, puncturing his hand with such force, it pulls him to his feet. With a small effort and massive "RAHRRR" of pain, he frees his hand. Angrily he grabs his imp minion in his ugly-claw, crushing it and pulls it to his face, while staring down Intahquohae. He spits another nasty bit of divine nicotine right into the mangled imp ball. Then spins around and whips his arm around his waist while twisting his forearm. The famous junk ball is way off target...Or is it!? In mid-air it corrects itself with a sharp curve, now destined to splat against whatever solid object it hits like an acidic water-baloon.
Iintahquohae feels a pain shoot up her leg from her big toe. ...The goo from the spike she lept off of. Some of it gnawed away at her flesh. Digging her toe into the sand, she tries to scrape it away, and is grateful to see through squinted, watery eyes that Mathollak's great claw has essentially created a path of sorts for her to evade more spikes. She leaps closer to the grooves, causing an unseen spike to burst out of the sand as she falls short, tearing up the underside of her foot. A pained scream erupts from her lips, amplified by the mark cut into her tongue. Blood flows from her foot once she finally reaches the grooves Mathollak created, hobbling the remainder of the way, bat in hand. Distracted by the pain of her foot, she misses the Axe of Love spit out nicotine, as well as catching a glimpse of the imp ball. The ball-shaped shadow heading for her does grab her attention however. Upon realization that it looks less like a ball and more like something liquid-filled, potentially more corrosive goo in her eyes, she kicks off her bloodied, melted cleat, and tosses it up in the air in place of one of her discarded baseballs, then swings. The swing rings true, mostly. Due to it being a cleat and not a ball, the hit is less smooth and it awkwardly tumbles in the air, melted heel over melted toe toward the acidic water balloon to either knock it out of her trajectory or burst it.
Mathollak sees his junk ball splat in mid-air and rain grossness around them. As clumps of sticky and somehow delicious acid land in the sand, spikes shoot out of the ground around them. Mathollak spits out the rest of his tobacco and eeks out a last minute plea to his matron, "Won't you join us? We could have a menage et twois!" The Dark Mother obliges, and the goo from the junk ball, the javelin, and smoldering pile he just spit out all begin to coagulate in a spot to Iintahquohae's side. It piles on top of itself, pulling itself together in the form of a sultry maiden made completely out of gelatinous acid. She curtsies. Without further adieu, she glides toward Iintahquohae while spikes clang free of their traps and puncture through her liquid body, only to be dissolved and added to the goo maiden. She attempts to dance with Inks, asking in a magically tempting voice, "Won't you join me, Iintahquohae?"
Iintahquohae, holding the bat close while she considers her options. With a torn up foot, movement will be a nightmare she notes, casting a brief glance down at her bleeding foot. Not a terribly deep cut, judging by the amount of blood that pools underfoot when she lifts it up to take a look, but uncomfortable to run on. The sound of multiple parts moving has her eyes searching for the most threatening looking noise. The objects that coalesce near her make her want to take a step back, but remembering that the grooves created by Mathollak's clawed hand appear to be a save zone to walk along, she sidesteps instead, going for a two handed grip on the bat. When it moves, dancing it seems, then speaks, she decides there's no need for magic this time. She allows the maiden to get close enough, then sharply shoves the end cap of the bat toward the gelatinous woman's middle, shifting into an upswing to strike her jaw.
Winner: Mathollak
Auto-Hit Round
Mathollak takes advantage of his matron's distraction and moves in on Iintahquohae. While the blob's acid mouth goes flying through the air, Mathollak sneaks his ugly claw around Iintahquohae's helmet and tears it off, immediately using it as a crude weapon to bonk her with, discarding it after. When she tips over, he steps on her bat and kneels to the side, winding up a massive punch and plunging it straight through the ground on the side of her head. We're not here to kill anyone!
Iintahquohae expects her skull to be caved in by the fist that comes down. Wincing when it makes contact with the the ground beside her, she makes a pained smile while looking up to him. “You better have something to fix my foot, guy.”