Duel:Lionel v Raelynn - Round One of the Acolytes of War Tournament 2016
Duelists: Lionel vs. Raelynn Location: Snowless Training Yard Judges: Diryon, Emrith, Elias Duel: Traditional 3 posts each, with final defense. 15 minute posting limit. First round of 2016 Acolytes of War.
Lionel is dressed in a traditional silk long-sleeve shirt ill-befitting a place of war with loose-fitting leather slacks for an accompaniment. Yet his equipment is not wholly devoid of battle-readiness; spiked silvery shoulder guards, similarly-sharp boots, and a thin sheet of powerful mithril beneath his shirt allow for limited protection whilst enabling the Catalian to take keen advantage of his considerable agility. As the man sets his hand upon the hilt of the fabled Hellfire to slide it free from its red-glowing case upon his backside, he regards Raelyn coolly, his azure gaze seemingly weighing the woman over. A single blink seems to signify that Lionel is beginning his assault – Hellfire is dragged with an audible whoosh overhead, and he kicks firmly into the golden-sandy texture underfoot, then charges at a perfect angle toward his opponent. Hellfire, however, is held in one chiseled grasp, his left wrist visibly struggling to maintain a defensive seventy-five degree angle with the greatsword whilst his right hand deftly plucks a previously-hidden sickle-shaped obsidian dagger from his shirt's breast pocket. Midway to Raelynn, Lionel swerves hard, banking behind one of the training yard's four stone-held fluorite orbs, launching the dagger through the air to take the avian in her neck if successful. From behind the orb, Lionel stalks, crouched low, and then he leaps nimbly atop the thing, threatening to shatter it as he does so, and with a tremendous forward vault he descends downward upon Raelynn, Hellfire held in both hands now such that failure to escape might mean a clean cleave from skull down through pelvis.
Raelynn , unlike the man before her was clad in simple leathers. Clothing surely not suited for the chill of Frostmaw, let alone a melee. The tense muscles of her body relaxed as she planted her feet firmly in the soft sands of the training yard as Lionel proceeded to draw his blade, that familiar cry of metal on metal as it was released. This was home, where she belonged, facing an enemy, not that she categorized him as such, but for the time being, that’s what they were. She let herself smile as keen, hawkish eyes watched Lionel’s advance, the avian’s right arm expertly falling to her hip to draw her own sword, Brunisvell. This would be the first time, and as she pulled, she felt something strange. A stinging cold was radiating from the hilt and frost became exposed upon the metal of the dagger that had once belonged to a giant. Lionel was very close now and she crouched, leathered legs pushing her upward and back, trying to move at speed, and urges her large dark wings to propel her upward. It was at this moment that Raelynn saw the other hand of the warrior in front of her and saw the flash of a blade that wasn’t Hellfire. Just in time, the Avain had pulled her sword free to barely knock the thrown weapon aside, barely angling it away from her face. A scratch was left and the earring she had worn in the left ear had ripped out, caught on the thing, leaving a rather unsightly semi-circle in the lobe. Raelynn had left the ground now, and lost sight of her foe. With a low groan of admonishment towards herself, the girl throws her body back, becoming parallel with the earth, at the exact moment Lionel descends. She draws her blade up and across her chest as the pair meet, her free hand snaking around his back, to secure him as they thud into the soft sand. Blinking past the sand in her eyes and up her nose, Raelynn proceeds to try and maneuver atop Lionel, her free hand reaching for the back of his head, if there’s any hair she could grab to wrench his head backwards.
Lionel cocks a lone brow as Raelynn's blade defends against his own, perilously close to his collarbone, then cocks the other for a full-on look of shock when the both of them come tumbling down into the dusty surface. Beneath the woman and spitting back sand he twists at the right elbow even as her hand takes full root of his hair, pulling a clump straight off but maintaining enough grip to compel the Catalian's body to do her bidding. So it is that O'Connor finds himself held in place and slightly hairless; he spits unceremoniously upward to the avian's forehead, launching a swiftly-raised knee to her midsection as he bashes his boots drastically into the ground in a fast-paced effort to drag himself by his back free from between Rae's posture. Successful, he merely turns about-face as he rises, grapples Hellfire's hilt freshly with both hands, and moves to impale the presumably-downtrodden avian through the spinal cord.
Raelynn had no plans formulated beyond the short-lived grapple and tried to keep her movements to LIonel’s pace, the proffered sand riddled saliva is accepted upon her cheek without concern and feels her prey slip from her grasp and suddenly finds herself fighting to breath, the knee from Lionel disrupting the rhythm of her diaphragm. She lays there, motionless, yet calm. She’ll have her breath back soon, there was no reason to worry about it. She was laying upon her sword, both arms under her. She could hear the rapid approach of her could-be killer, his booted feet rustling the sands with each step. Raelynn had to make this count. In one hand, she gathered a handful of sand and sured up the grip she hand on Brunisvell. Lionel was close again...Now! The avain flung herself to the left, rolling away as the skilled swordsman she had always heard so much about lunged, the tip of his blade tearing into her side at the base of her right wing and extending the gouge as she rolls. Raelynn threw the firstful of sand towards his face as she brought her weapon in an upward, backhanded strike, intent on cleaving Lionel from hip to shoulder as she brought herself up to one knee, the sand beneath her starting to turn red from the blood dripping onto it, from her. It wasn’t deep, though, she thought. Or at least, not too deep to kill her right away.
Lionel slams Hellfire down hard inside Raelynn's wing, flinching at the crunch that follows. With so much of his two hundred pounds so heavily invested in the action, the woman's projectile sand smacks into his face without obstruction – Lionel seems unwilling to release his grasp to evade. Only then does he begin to yank the tip of his sword free from the bloodied and flesh-mangled ground, too slowly to deflect Brunisvell. Raelynn takes him directly in the hip, the very edge of his mithril undershirt bitten into harshly by the brunt impact, a blatant gash shooting hot red liquids to and fro as Lionel winces and screams. Yet at last Hellfire is free, moving to disrupt Brunisvell before it can complete its trajectory; in a quick and spectacularly-framed skyward block, the Catalian saves his shoulder from certain cleaving. Even as this occurs, he's pounding his boots into the sand all over again, tilting at the left knee to lean back and then leaping a full two meters wayward. The man pivots to bring Hellfire in a horizontal sweep over Rae's damaged wing in the motion, sneaking a fast-freed hand to unleash one last sickle-shaped dagger from his opposite breast pocket as he lands. Its arc would send it straight between his foe's eyes.
Raelynn cries out in a cacophony of pain and frustration as she pivots on her knee and rises just as Lionel swings, but Brunisvell is brought up, taken in both hands to swat it to the side with all her might. Compared side by side, Raelynn might as well be a child, her stature was certainly close enough. It felt like striking a boulder, and the avain screamed as the muscles in her back protested as she tried to use her wings, spurting blood from her wound, making it larger. She didn’t care and rushed in, and was ready for the second projectile. Raelynn turned just so, spinning on the ball of her left foot and took the dagger squerly in her left arm and continued to spin, lowering herself a the same time, bringing her sword to sweep at the man’s thigh, lest he should try and jump and risk an amputated foot.
Lionel does indeed risk an amputated foot, the man's frenzied features betraying every ounce of his battle-rage as his feet touch the ground only to immediately bounce him straightforwardly back from whence he came. There is a clear and present ache to both his arms, Raelynn's bewilderingly last-ditch defense against Hellfire having combined with the pain flowing freely through his hip to reduce the strength with which he wields. Sword is thus drawn only protectively, inventory of daggers emptied, it seems the Catalian's only remaining plot might be to close the distance between Demont's daughter and himself. Perhaps a full-bodied grab similar to her own was the plan? It makes no difference; Brunisvell tastes blood upon Lionel's thigh, and he roars in anguish and disregards whatever he had in mind, collapsing back somewhat and making one last daring jump to escape the girl.
Victor: Lionel