Duel:Kuzial v Rikailin
Background
In the aftermath of the Elven exodus from Sage, the druid Rikailin accepts Kuzial's challenge and prepares to unleash the power of nature on the rage-fuelled drow Patron of house Stavret.
OOC Details
8/12/2011, approx 5 AM Hollow time.
Duel for stakes: Half of Rikailin's power drained into Kuzial's soulstone, vs Loss of Kuzials right hand.
Three posts, 10 minute time limit, no autos
Judges: Tiphareth, Liana, Rheven (Mid)
Setting
These rolling hills seem to crash like waves into one another, bobbing off into the western horizon. The only exits from these steep inclines are east and west, where the ground becomes much more manageable. Tiny stones are placed into strange formations in the center of this hill, an odd sight to see in the wilderness.
Storms Above Kelay - Rikailin faces Kuzial
Rikailin stands nearly motionless atop the stony hillock in southern Sage, tapered ears and sensitive nostrils twitching in anticipation of the slightest sound or scent which will betray her quarry. The battle-druid has made of herself a decently easy target to spot, but due to the presence of thick dead grasses and pebbles in all directions, combined with the lack of encroaching flora this high on the hill, an attack from concealment on behalf of the Drow will be of no effect. In no time at all, the vampiric elf catches the telltale scuff of a soft step and whirls to face it. She gives her prey no time to react, but simply looses the three spells which she has held ready in a trio within her staff, having had precious moments to prepare them owing to her headlong flight to the arranged battleground and her familiarity with both her home and chosen crafts. The first sends up the majority of the pebbles from the hill's top to circle the druid in a veritable shield of moving rocks. The second sends the remainder - an admittedly smallish number, but with each being larger than those which comprise Rikailin's barrier and hurled at hellish speed - down the hill toward Kuzial in an attempt to crush, slash or otherwise incapacitate him. By far the most deadly, however, is the druid's third trap...namely, a focused blast of arcane force shoved into the ground at her feet and then projected in the Drow's general direction in a widening fan. The energy leaves no visible mark of its passing, but quickly turns the bared earth to a frigid crust beneath her opponent. Should his feet remain in contact too long upon this surface, they might freeze enough to render fancy footwork impossible. Should Kuzial be struck by one of Rikailin's haphazard missiles and tumble to the ground, his entire body might thusly be affected...and a paralyzed Drow will make an easy meal. Armour, particularly of the metal variety, is apt to conduct this unnatural chill especially well, as Rikailin has had many opportunities to test this trick on greater men than this. Should he manage to either launch a counter-attack from afar before being engaged, or be able to reach the battle-druid relatively unharmed, Rikailin's barraging entourage of stones is there to greet him...as is, of course, the infuriated elf herself, standing calmly with staff in hand and baring her fangs in a spitless snarl.
Kuzial stalks up the hill with the customary silence of a drow warrior rendered deep within the confines of the lightless Underdark; a place where almost everything hunts by sound alone. As he spies his hated opponent he allows himself a small smile, before casually throwing his dagger onto the ground beside him. Sure enough, the blind druid mistakes this for the scuff of a boot and hurls forth her powerful nature magic. Kuzial was not far enough away to be spared from the oncoming rocks, though. More than one strikes him as he leaps to the left onto his shoulder, before languindly getting into a fighter's crouch. The stones have easily lacerated into his flesh, leaving dripping trails of sanguine vitae, but for the enraged drow it acts as nothing more than an enhancement to his anger. With a barely surpressed snarl he leaps forward at the druid, seeming not to care she is encased within a prison of spinning stone. His feet quickly seperate the distance between them, though something is wrong. One foot begins to grow numb as her insidiously icy magic flows through the ground and up his leg. With barely a thought the drow enacts his innate power to levitate and floats up above the battle ground. He uses his momentum to carry him forward until he is over top of Rikailin, before he releases the spell and falls down. He is struck by many stones as he crashes through her arcane barrier, but he doesn't seem to care for the bruises and cuts they create. He has erupted into a frenzy of dazzling slashes and stabs before he has even touched the ground, each one aimed at the druid's vital areas, to incapacitate her and leave her easy prey for the psychotic, bleeding weapon master...
Rikailin awaits the battle's next logical progression - a tumbling body, a sickening crunch of stone on flesh - but it does not come. Twin tingles upon her earlobes tells her that the Drow has enacted some sort of magic and, in the next second, she realizes with horror that he is now likely airborne and thus free of the icy doom that awaits him below...free for precious moments, at least. The wind carries Rikailin the stink of Drow blood from above, and the soft thuds of her stone barrier are enough to save her a quick and brutal evisceration, but not enough to allow her to avoid all harm. She drops to her knees with Katr'Liana still held upright in both hands and braced with its butt against the ground, taking the majority of Kuzial's intended killing frenzy on the vines garbing her back and shoulders. Most of these trailers lash out when struck, some peeling away to reveal scored and gashed flesh beneath while others unconsciously attempt to ensnare the Drow's weapon hand long enough to wrest his blade from the hand's grip. Rikailin hopes for a grisly second that Kuzial has fallen atop the tip of her staff and impaled himself, as his trajectory and her own compromised body position might easily suggest. Whether or not Kuzial has been seriously wounded by his tumble, the battle-druid leaves her genuflective position and rolls to the right, bringing the staff with her and almost inadvertently tossing her foe aside. She leaps up none too steadily, brandishing Katr'Liana and grimacing in pain as rivulets of blood ripple down her back from the multitude of slashes she has taken. She stands several paces from her downed foe but seizes the moment by sending the rest of her barrier, scattered though it is, directly at the Drow from near point-blank range in a punishing barrage of debris. She bounds backward - for her legs are as good as they ever were - moving away from the still-enchanted cold earth at the Drow's back, points her chin skyward and screams in a thunderous voice. It is a call without words but full of blind imperative, and a moment later, a huge form comes lumbering past the battle-druid to stand in front of her...a huge, shaggy dire bear, all teeth and claws and unleashed fury bent on destroying the one who has done his mistress harm. Safely behind her familiar, Rikailin points her staff at the heavens and begins to hum low in her throat; the flow of blood, which had begun to slow due to the vampire's quick regenerative abilities, starts anew as the druid's vast potential goes to work. Clouds quickly form and cover the dawn, then lower to form a low, flat ceiling over the nearby hills. Lightning begins to lick back and forth across the ceiling as the layer of clouds drops further still. When the spell has reached its climax, there is a layer of constant - if fairly weak - lightning in the air some fourteen feet overhead...well within Grull's reach, should he need to reach up to ensnare a levitating Drow. Nursing both her wounds and her pride in silence now, the battle-druid waits in her bear's shadow, waiting to see what will happen to the drow should he attempt to draw close to her protector or, of greater folly still, to outwit it.
Kuzial feels each time his weapon strikes the flesh of Rikailin, and he basks in the sadistic joy that comes from harming any of these elves who so foolishly stand before the drow. Thankfully, he did not impale himself upon the druid's staff, and the brutal speed and fury of his attack stops her armor from ensnaring his arms. He was warned about that tactic from the Eldermage, Tiphareth, and silently he offers thanks to the patron for the warning. As she rolls away, Kuzial once again adopts a defensive crouch. His mouth opens to spew forth insults, but before he can the remnants of her barrier are hurled directly at his armoured form. Without time for evasion, he simply crosses his forearms across his face and takes the barrage front on. Unfortunately, even for a warrior as powerful as Kuzial, he cannot stand before such a barrage and is quickly hurled onto his back with arms and legs further lacerated by the stone. With another snarl of immense rage, the patron of House Stavret gets to his feet, only to be met by the tooth and claw of a terrible bear that seems to him to have appeared from no-where. Being from the house that protects all of Trist'Oth from the dangers of the Underdark, he is not unduly worried by the large beast. He merely waits for it to hurl itself upon him, before leaping to the left. He takes a glancing blow on his right shoulder that doesn't pierce his armor, though it does partially numb the limb. But again, it is not enough to take the dark elf from the fray. He has also noticed the clouds that linger so close to the battlefield, taking away his ability to levitate, but he cares nothing for them. Now is not the time for any more subtle plans. He charges directly at his opponent, leaving the direbear behind him. As he nears her, the thumps of the beast's larger feet drowning the faint noise of his own, Kuzial leaps to her left. During his jump he draws his new poisoned crossbow and the moment his feet have touched the ground he fires it not at the druid, but at her bear. It is coated with the sleeping poison of the drow, and though it isn't strong enough to drop the large beast, it would surely cause it to be severely confused. The patron drow hopes it is confused enough to attack Rikailin, but regardless of whether that is true he has once again begun to put his ebon sword through a series of vicious strikes, majority of them aimed at the vampire's throat. He is wary of her armor, as he was earlier, and his blows are not as strong as they could be due to the blood and bruises from her earlier attacks, but nevertheless his attack is brutal in its intent.
Rikailin continues to lose blood as she maintains her spell and awaits Grull's clash with the weapons master. When it comes, the druid utters a high, drilling laugh, a mirthless peal on the brink of insanity...and so it should be, for the vampire's endurance, taxed to its limits both by the ferocity of her assailant and her own mental strain, have caused the onset of bloodlust. In this heightened state of awareness, all sensations seem to shout, and nearly every living thing is prey. Fortunately for Grull, who has stumbled away in a bellowing rage and is taking out his fumbling aggressions on enemies only he can see, Rikailin's nearest target is the quickly-approaching Drow. Even in her altered state, Rikailin knows that a full-on assault would be suicide, and so she uses her greater speed, further multiplied by the Drow's earlier-injured foot, to try to keep a half-step ahead of her enemy. When he thrusts, she arches backward, causing loose skeins of vine to brush the ground; when he stabs, she is sometimes able to parry with Katr'Liana but mostly takes nicks and gashes along the fronts of her arms and across the mantle which protects her belly and chest. Due to her constant endeavours to achieve distance from her relentless attacker, none of these wounds is particularly dangerous, though the pain and blood loss from each will soon be too much to bear. At last, having leapt clear enough to sprint several feet away, Rikailin whips Katr'Liana aloft toward the low ceiling of clouds and spins it once before turning and beginning to flee. Attracted by the nearest life signature - that of the Drow, whose blood it has been enchanted to track - the plate of clouds begins to tighten and thicken until it resembles a giant cyclopian eye pulsing with lightning. This massive burst of magic drops like a stone, expanding as it comes, intending to encapsulate the drow in a cocoon of lethal electricity. Far more water than should be present accompanies the crackling sparks, further increasing its conductive potential and adding to the Drow's risk of threats the very real possibility that he may be drowned by gouts of water hammered down his throat and into his lungs.
Kuzial keeps up his furious assault until the druid manages to flee far enough away to once more cast her wicked magic. The eye that glows above him with an almost sentient malice is warning enough for Kuzial, and instead of standing still within the cocoon of energy he enacts with all his strength another levitation spell. His body is ravashed by the strikes of powerful lightning, each one tearing through the links of his finely crafted drow chainmail and lavishing their odious touch upon his already bloodied flesh. But with the spell cast, his own agony is not enough to send him hurling to the ground. Water lashes down over him, further conducting the energy that soars through his veins, and to Kuzial it seems time has stood still. He is lost; alone within a prison of unending misery, until finally he creasts the top of the clouds. The drow, hidden from view by the fading remnants of Rikailin's spell, is a mass of horrendously horrible wounds that would pour far more blood were it not for the fact the lightning has seared shut majority of them; covering opened flesh with bubbling scabs of boiled flesh. In his state, broken and beaten, Kuzial snaps: Fingers that were once ebon, but now are tattered and sanguine, wrap painfully around the glowing soul-stone that graces his neck and he begins to scream a series of words in the euphoniously lyrical language of the drow. The spell is one taught to every dark elf alive: a simple casting of faerie fire that would usually surround their opponent, thus making them an easier target, without actually causing any burning. But with his innate power casted through the soul-stone that incarcerates his own father, the effect is different. The air around Rikailin would begin to waver as it grows hotter and hotter at an alarming rate. Above the druid, tendrils of smoke float into the sky, before tongues of fire begin to lazily lick the air. The spell takes a few more moments, before Kuzial screams the final word and releases the energy built up within himself and the insignia around his throat. Blinded by his own attack, Kuzial cannot know what happens. The last thing he manages to see is a virtual pillar of fire erupt into malicious life, and drown the druid from sight. The fires last many a moment, before they begin to fade away. But even after, Kuzial can only manage to squint through heavily watering eyes, hoping if the vampire survived the torrents of flame that he has the ability to evade any coming counterstrike for he fears he has not the strength to launch another attack of his own...
Rikailin is once more warned of Kuzial's survival and imminent onslaught by the tiny earrings she wears, talismans whose sole enchantment is to detect the channelling of magic other than her own. The battle-druid quickly button-hooks to the left as the air around her starts to heat, then dives flat and begins to roll, clutching Katr'Liana tightly to her body as she moves. Grit grinds itself into her multitudinous cuts and abrasions as she picks up speed, now rolling down the very hill which earlier she had enchanted with insidious frigidity. It is this forgotten snare which saves the vampire's life. Just before the pillar strikes, the ground, outraged beyond endurance by both cold and the weight atop it, opens and spills the druid into an old badger's sett head-first. Her whole body tumbles into the hole with only her feet sticking out as fire strikes the ground all around her. The heat itself is intense enough to nearly render her unconscious, but enchanted as she now is by the unnatural chill, the fire's devastations simply meet her own spell and explode outward in billows of hot steam. Blistered from the knees down and with the rest of her stuffed head-down and bleeding freely in a shallow pit, Rikailin is by no means capable of continuing to battle. She can only hope that Kuzial's last blast, as it were, has also resulted in his demise. In due time, the vampire will either lever herself out of the blasted ruin of the badger-den and limp away to seek healing in a safer place, or will allow herself to be completely encased in cloying earth, there to rest while her body's unnatural talents go to work on the many outrages visited upon it this morning.
Enacting the stakes
Judges' Decision: By a 2-1 score, Kuzial is the winner. Congrats to both of you, the duel's quality was far above the level of many of your peers.
Kuzial awakes silently from his spot within Sage Forest. A groan of absolute agony threatens to tear itself from his throat, but being raised in a place where the slightest noise can mean death, he is resolute in keeping quiet. An experimental moving of his limbs shows nothing is broken, though his flesh is a mass of bleeding wounds. The dark elf drags himself to his feet and picks up his ebon sabre. With breath that rasps through clenched teeth, the dark elf stalks to the east where he can still see the smoking remnants of the hill. His approach is direct, he will end this now once and for all, even though he barely has the strength to stand. And then he sees them, the two feet of the druid sticking from deep within the badger's home. A grin of hatred burns onto ebon lips and the drow raises his weapon to deliver the final strike, before another spasm of pain causes him to drop the blade. He has not the strength to kill the druid, though an idea comes to mind that is almost better. At least, he is sure his nemesis Cornelius would appreciate it. On a bended knee he leans down and removes the House Stavret soulstone insignia from his neck. With a malicious smile at the odious stone which imprisons his own father's soul, the dark elf places it upon the exposed flesh of Rikailin's leg and drives it to steal the soul of the vampire. Being non-magical, and not really that wise in the usage of soul-stones, his attempt hardly works as expected, though it does have a strange reaction: It draws from the druid, pulling at her depths of power, dragging the nature-esque strength she so casually uses into its ruby depths. This goes on for a long moment, until Kuzial is sent flying backwards, the soulstone still in hand. It pulses with a new inner light and the drow, so callous and cruel, can feel the swirling energy. With another malicious smile, the drow pulls himself to his feet, returns the soulstone to his neck, and picks up his sword before staggering back into the depths of the forests - leaving Rikailin in his wake with half her druidic strength drawn from her body...