Duel:Macon v Valrae, Match 7 of the 2023 War Games - Larket v Cenril
Duelists: Macon vs Valrae Duel: Traditional 3 rounds with final defense, 20 minute posting limit. Stakes: Standard, autohit delivered by winner with allowance for final reply. Judges: Meri, Karasu, and Kasyr
Narrow Path
A perfect path runs north some ways, and south, ending at Kelay's through road. Branching off to the east, the path comes right up to the very door of the Mayor's home. Each side of the walk is lined with thin, black poles, protruding from the dry earth.
Valrae || Hoarfrost had arrived on the second night of Mourningfrost and in dawn’s first light the world was shimmering and encased in a delicate layer of glassy ice. The thick forest of Sage was winter bare and painted in shades of white over the deeper browns and grays. The scrabbly, pale grass crunched beneath the many hooves and feet of Cenril’s army. While intelligence had come from both sides that their forces would be on the move, it was no longer clear who had first organized their siege but what was crystalline now is that they would be meeting in battle on the neutral ground of Kelay. Glendoria, the hard nosed Captain from the 5th precinct, led a well trained and highly organized battalion of foot soldiers dressed in full plate armor. Their kite shields created several layered walls painted boldly with the flag of Cenril. The narrowness of the path was navigated with several tight lines of shielded soldiers with pike-bearing holy warriors sandwiched between the first and second shield walls in shining celestial bronze. Roldric Grayhood, the beastmaster of Cenril and the general who had one victory over Larket already tucked beneath his belt, followed behind with the calvary, the stout and heavily armored dwarf riding on a gnarly tusked razorback boar that was nearly half the size of the lightly armored horses that he led - clearly an unnaturally occurring creature that left large plumes of cloudy white smoke in the winter air has he snorted in anticipation. Shadows moved through the trees, less covered now that winter had arrived, the patrolling felines of Cenril in their wild forms to dart quickly and stealthily through the forest. Valrae, on the back of her shadowy stallion familiar, headed up the rear of the army. His hooves stuck the frozen ground and left emerald fire in his wake, smoke billowing from flared nostrils. Her hair was a golden plait that swayed at her back, the triple moon diadem set over her proud and determined brow. Her armor was a balance between light and easy moving white leathers and more protective runed celestial bronze. A thin sword was sheathed at her right hip, the gleaming emerald skull hanging on the left. Tension crowded the air around her, already thick with magic that danced along her skin as twinkling as fireflies. Her breath left in clouds of white as her eyes narrowed on the horizon. While spellcasters and witches were layered throughout the shielded soldiers armed with wands and staves, there was a curious lack of witches. Infact, while Cenril moved through Kelay with a healthy portion of their army, if one were to take the time to scrutinize the two battalions they might wonder if this was somehow the effect of their previous loss. Was Cenrili manpower dwindling?
Macon has left Larket with an invading army, or at least part of one. The Rage Knight rides in a horse drawn carriage at the center of a battalion of foot soldiers and mages, (Wendell, a wizard member of The Kingsguard, flies overhead in his Academy of Magics robes), with some smaller siege weaponry bringing up the rear. The larger rigs are with another company, taking a different, less tree lined and narrow route that can accommodate their size. The going is cautious and slow, but deliberately so. The reason for which is twofold; for one he’s attempting to time things out so all the components of his attacking forces arrive at the port city’s walls around the same time, and two, he’s let leak to the press his intentions of marching on Cenril and wants to give the enemy’s anticipation and fear time to simmer or preferably fester. The side effect of this tactic meant that there was the ever present possibility that Cenril would launch a counterattack of their own and, somewhere between the two cities, these forces would meet. Outside of the old mayor’s house, they now have. When his army stops, Macon stirs and asks, “What is going on?” while already opening the coach door and stepping out in his utilitarian, tarnished silver armor. If not for the entourage around him and the great axe with the glowing Rage Stone embedded in its head, he might be indistinguishable from any other of the rank and file soldiers present. A matching silver helmet is under his left arm and after he leaves The Rage Axe standing unnaturally upright on the butt of its handle and pushes back his hair, the king puts that last piece of his armor on his head, slate eyes peering out of it, glaring down the narrow path at his enemy that has tormented his people for years…
Round One
Macon picks up The Rage Axe and holds it high in the air in his right hand. He makes eye contact with Wendell for a brief moment and lowers the weapon, pointing it forward as he lets out a guttural roar. The shout contains no words in any language, but the command is clear, and relayed by the flying mage; CHARGE. In the very back Larketian lines, siege weaponry is being anchored and loaded. The mages littered throughout the battalion cast one of two spells towards Cenril’s forces. One is a simple wind spell, scaled up by the amount of casters, that provides a tailwind to the infantry and their king, who has climbed up onto a strong Larketian horse of his own, the angry aura he’s become known for pulsing out of the stone affixed to his weapon and from the very blood in his veins that has been tainted by the artifact. The effect on his army is palpable, overflowing fury displaces any amount of fear that might be in their hearts. The second bit of magic that comes from the spellcasters is a collection of lightning bolts. Blue energy arcs over the heads of the charging Larketians and begins to curl downward towards the opposing forces. Macon, on his steed, outpaces the footsoldiers, but he’s still not quite at the front just yet. However, he has spotted Valrae and she has long been the top object of his anger. This is perfect because anger is the very motif of his fighting style, and The Rage Knight knows that if he can see that witch, then she is within his range. He leans down towards his right side while riding and sweeps his axe low, holding it down near the end of the handle, and flings the weapon through the air. It spins and flies like a boomerang, albeit a heavy, sharp, deadly one. The thing never loses even a bit of altitude or speed as it helicopters through the air, propelled by the magic of the wicked stone. It cleaves through any number of Cenrilian’s (or Larketians at the beginning of the flight) that might get in its way as it flies directly towards the governing witch of Cenril…
Valrae || The Cenrili soldiers hold fast as the King of Larket bellows and sends his own army into a frenzy of motion. They move seamlessly into a defensive line, shield walls slamming against the frost covered ground as the devout pikemen ready to reach over the front lines. Their spears are tipped with the same celestial bronze and blessed with the holy light of Arken. The magical wind rips at them and still they hold the line. The mages among the ranks begin working a counter, their staves and wands working as arcane energy builds, stilling the frigid wind that had blurred their eyes and sent a rain of hoarfrost around them. The pikes reach out, as well as carefully timed sword strikes as Glendoria’s clear voice shouts orders from behind the lines upon her white steed. Whenever a Larketian soldier was unlucky enough to find themselves on the damaging end of those pikes, soon they would feel the explosive power of the god of the sun as the holy magic burst like a burning thunderclap upon impact. Even while the Cenrilian’s held the initial line, Glendoria’s call came to fall back. With a great heave of many men and women, the shield lines moved back… Why would they retreat at the first strike? Valrae’s hand gripped tight to her stallion’s mane to hide the trembling as she watched from behind her lines. She seemed to be disinterested in Macon himself, her dark eyes searching for an opening in her carefully calculated lines to navigate Fury through as he pranced with anticipation. The Rage King gave her the opening. His ax cut through her lines like butter, the unholy power and might bringing low the center line despite the shield wall. She had little time to react, dispelling her familiar in a puff of smoke so that she might land clumsily on her feet among the scrabbly grass. The ax sailed over head only inches from deviation. The wall closed over the opening Macon cleaved quickly, the ranks reforming and Glendoria’s frantic barking, but the High Priestess could move more nimbly through her own numbers on foot and she sprinted headlong into the noise and chaos of battle. “Fall back!” Again, Glendoria maneuvered the Cenrili line further down the narrow path, hopeful at drawing more of the Larketian forces in. Roldric Grayhood broke through the ranks on his squealing razorback, plunging himself and his calvary through the Larketian forces like a wedge. He would strike out at any near with a heavy warhammer, screaming with glee all the while as he attempted to cleave a way directly through the middle. On the ground, Valrae’s visibility was limited and her breath was leaving in ragged gulps as she headed for where Macon’s rage magic seemed most concentrated. Her ashwand was at the ready as curses fell from her lips, Vaalane’s light bursting in green and blue waves at any Larketian soldiers who managed to near. Though Macon was dressed as any other in his force, when finally faced with the King she knew his magic nearly as well as her own. Time seemed to slow, the noise of war falling away from her as fear crowded her vision. There was no hesitation as she brought her wand up and shouted a curse of paralysis, aiming the bolt of blinding white directly at his chest.
Round Two
Macon growls as the bursts of holy magic decimate those unlucky enough to make first contact. He continues his own charge however and hears the calls to fall back from the Cenrilian commander. He was waiting for exactly this, but hadn’t anticipated it so soon. He’s learned to control the infuriating aura he and The Rage Stone give off quite well over the years, but the ability is greatly amplified while he is in possession of the artifact. He had wanted to direct that enraging effect onto Cenril’s soldiers when they were told to retreat, in an attempt to coax them forward at inopportune moments such as this, but the stone is attached to a flying axe at the moment and he can’t do that to great effect just yet. Without his weapon, Macon is still an effective fighter, as those who met him on the field of battle during the war with Frostmaw can attest to. He’s been trained as a death knight of Vakmatharas and is specifically skilled with the ability to produce a life draining aura and touch. Just as he breaches the front lines by palming the face of a pikeman and turning them into an elderly gentleman with a bad hip as he rides by, the first volley of catapults sends large, hard Larketian stones into the heart of Valrae’s forces. A pair of off target boulders kick eastward after hitting the ground and roll into the nearby home, causing the front wall to collapse in. Valrae and Macon meet finally and The King’s horse drops dead of old age due to the aura of death around The Rage Knight. Valrae’s white bolt finds the middle aged man’s chest and he’s frozen in place just as he dismounts. When the king was first taught this life draining technique by The HIgh Priestess of Vakmatharas, he was told to imagine unrolling the scroll of a thing’s lifespan. This metaphor has served him well in the past and he’s effectively used this Death Knight ability several times before, but that was all on people or objects that hadn’t yet reached the end of their scrolls. The Rage Knight has seen to it years ago that The Red Witch’s scroll had reached its end. When used on typical undead, this magic would drain the dark energy that kept them tethered to undeath, but Valrae is no typical undead, so what this aura touch will do to her is a mystery. He may be frozen in place, but the witch has that to deal with, and not to mention that the boomeranging Rage Axe is on its way back now, retargeting her of course…
Valrae || The mages that had worked against the wind were beginning to fray as lighting continued to strike down at the Cenrili forces, the powerful magic leaving bursts of death and fire in their wake. Glendoria dismounted, and shouted again to shift the slowly weakening front lines into an even more narrow, arched wall around them that closed off the Rage Knight and the few Larketian’s that had managed to break through, cutting them off from reinforcements to be picked off by the Cenrili soldiers. The devout pikeman at the front were lesser now for the decaying curse that Macon had left in his wake but even those now aged and frail managed to strike out fearlessly, if with a bit less force now feebled. Still, their shouts of righteous anger lost no fervor as Arkhen’s light burst through their enemies. Roldric Grayhood’s wedging effect was effective, less organized and more keen on wanton destruction as the calvary sliced out and led their armored steeds headlong into the Larketian lines. They were approaching the catapults quickly, intent on breaking them, but were too late. Devastation came from the skies at their first strike, taking out the left wall of Cenril’s army and leaving them struggling to reform. The center faired more favorably, the mages gathered there concentrating their magic so that the projectile was leveled to little more than a shower of gravel over the army. The spell that Valrae had used found it’s home in Macon’s chest but the witch gave herself no time for celebration, instead following up the curse with a flick of her wand. The magic fell from her lips and fire cracked out from the tip of the ashwood, the heat pushing back the freed strands of gold from her face and burning the tips of her own hands as a wall of flames rolled toward the King. Let him taste her death, she thought with bloodlust and sweat dripping into her eyes. She wasn’t idle though, knowing that her first curse had a short life. She moved forward, following the clean line her flames left and drawing her sword in a quick movement. Her right hand found the emerald skull at her hip as she drew more mana from it, the light of Vaalane encircling the high priestess so that Selene’s might could war with the darkness of Vakmatharas that rolled from Macon in waves. When the fire moves beyond Macon, no matter what state the King might be in, the witch would be lashing out with a brutal swing of her sword. If there were a moment to aim, she’d be leveling that blade right at his neck. Again, Glendoria shouted to her battalion to fall back and the army heaved again. Macon’s ax returning left even more Cenrili soldiers dead in it’s wake. The sound of armor crunching and the dying screams was the only warning that came before the ax was upon the Red Witch. There wasn’t enough time to move, but the momentum of her swing sent her to the left and she screamed as the ax ripped through the soft leather of her armor. Blood sprayed hot on the muddy, frozen ground as a it tore a deep gash just below her ribs and sent her staggering to one knee. Roldric Grayhood’s hammer made short work of the first of Larkets catapults just as a loud horn sounded from Glendoria.
Round Three
Macon grits his teeth, his neck muscles bulging as he desperately tries to brute force his way out of the paralysis spell. ‘Magic is for weaklings and elves,’ he has been known to say, but simply being really strong can’t possibly be the only countermeasure against the arcane that someone actively crusading against witches can have, right? Right, but again his trump card is the recreated Rage Stone, which because of his overexposure to it, has turned him into a somewhat magical being. His blood is effectively a less potent, liquid version of the stone now. If he only had it on hand he might be able to decrease the duration of the paralysis spell and regain his faculties. Everything comes together all at once, the wall of fire, the axe ripping through Valrae to force itself back into his hand. All he can do against the flames is angle his body slightly so that his right side catches the brunt of it. Facial hair is singed off and his chest armor glows red hot, while the sound of sizzling skin beneath is muffled out by the sounds of battle and The Rage Knight’s own growl of pain. The amplified fury and magical power of The Rage Stone snaps Macon completely out of the immobilizing curse and temporarily numbs him of the pain that the fire has wrought. He looks monstrous, burned skin shining beneath his widened slate eyes as he raises that giant weapon of his to block Valrae’s swing with the axe’s handle. Vakmatharas and Selene clash in the ether while Macon pushes back against Valrae’s advance with a shove, throws his helmet off and rushes forward, meaning to deliver a vicious headbutt to the witch, “Look what you’ve brought back with you!! Chaos! Death! You abomination! Return to Him!” The battle rages on behind them, Wendell retreating to the siege weaponry to bombard its attackers with slicing arcane blades of wind from the sky…
Valrae || Glendoria’s horn rose above the clash of war and the screams of the dying. The felines that had stalked through the forest were suddenly called to the fight, leaping into the fray from the shadows of the forest to pick off the sides of Larket’s arm with razor sharp claws and rows of hungry teeth. At the final sound of the horn, Valrae’s hidden flank is revealed. From their place hidden deep within Sage’s forest behind the narrow path that they had lured Larket’s arm, a third battalion swarms. They launch without hesitation into the back end of Larket’s advance, the witches that seemed to have been missing revealing themselves now as the sailed through the sky with the cold winter air ripping through wild and free hair. They dropped balls of pine sap and clay into Larket’s bulk, the devices falling seemingly useless before spells enacted them to burst with fire both natural and arcane, the pine making those unfortunate enough to be too near stuck with endlessly burning flames of pure white. Wendell and his slicing wind would find himself surrounded by witches who aimed wands and flung curses of decay toward him. The catapults were targeted with these explosives heavily, the witches not facing Wendell focusing their efforts on burning them to the ground even as Roldric Grayhood continued to swing his war hammer out with manic screaming mingling with the shrill squeals of his tusked boar. Valrae can smell the coppery tang of her own blood and taste it in her mouth as she stumbles back to her feet. He blocked her blade with his ax and sent pain from the effort of it aching up her arm as she danced back. The smell of burning hair and flesh awakens an old horror in her as she sees the horror that her magic had wrought upon Macon. There was no satisfaction as she might have hoped, only a pit of dread that sank like a stone in her stomach as he threw his helmet to the side. His words bore into her as deeply as his ax, her too large eyes wider still for the fear and confusion of battle. Movement and death swam in her peripherals and she hesitated even as he advanced. She felt again as if time slowed, her heartbeat drowning out all sound for a moment. “No.” Her voice was only a whisper, ripped away and drowned out by the symphony of war around her. She lifted her sword again. “No!” Her shout now carried all of the power within her, bursting out of her in a wave of magic that sent men in full armor around them flying back both Cenrili and Larketian alike. Her feet squared as she faced down the man who had brought her first life to the end, the fear leaving her eyes to be replaced with only hunger and vengeance. “This is the path your hatred has carved.” She shouts back, fire racing down her blade filled with the holy magic of Selene even as the circle of Vaalane’s light grew wider around her to further beat back Macon’s darkness. With her sword burning, she swings up and wild, sending an arc of that burning white toward the King with all of her fury.
Final Defense
Macon exudes two separate auras; death and fury. Where there were once weeds that had grown out of the narrow path that the battle rages on, there are now just brown, wilted flora that is quickly turning to ash, the ground cracking as it tastes the energy of the clashing gods overseeing this battle. While some of the fight has spilled off the road due to the wedge tactics, and the scattering effects of the volleys of siege weaponry, much of the forces remain on the road and thus are in the area of effect of the infuriating King’s aura. The majority of the Larketians are tested in battle under the influence of their Commander in Chief’s fury, the same can’t be said of the Cenrilians. The forces of The Hard City push back in their anger, focused on their goal of protecting their home while, Macon hopes, the enemies will be drawn into recklessness by the stone. When the forest cats and witches emerge, Wendell’s own counter is finally triggered. The focus of the majority of the mages in this troop is obviously wind magic, and they were prepared to face off against fire from Cenril’s witch allies and Valrae alike. While soldiers struggle against the felines, their armor allowing them to tank the less accurate claw and bite strikes as they keep the spellcasters safe, Wendell calls out, “Mages! Firestorm!” Three quarters of Larket’s mages in the battle raise their hands, staves, or wands to the sky and send a collective gust towards upwards that catches many of the dropped sap balls and flings them back from whence they came. The sky and ground alight simultaneously, igniting the forces below while Wendell and the flying witches are caught up in a swirling typhoon of fire and galeforce winds. Meanwhile near the center of it all, Macon and Valrae clash. Axe and sword come together again and again up until the point that the witch summons fire to her blade and Macon pushes forward in blind fury to meet the strike. He holds out the flat side of his axehead, with The Rage Stone embedded in it, to meet the white flamestrike, his off hand pushing the backside of the axehead. The fire and fury meet and crackle in the space between the two world leaders. For a moment everything freezes at the center of death and fire, perfectly symmetrical forces meeting in the middle… Then the reconstituted Rage Stone cracks and shatters, a tremendous shockwave of physical force and blazing anger shoves everything backwards away from the epicenter, The Rage Knight tumbling and rolling backwards until he clatters through the decaying bones of his recently fallen horse…
Winner: Valrae
Valrae || As the fresh and unwearied third flank of Cenril’s army washes into the narrow path to push Larket into a choke, they’re met with a powerful storm of arcane fire and wind. Many fall to the burning gale but the more skilled witches pull back and begin efficiently working as a cohesive group to work a counter spell. Still, the time they needed the losses began to mount. Roldric Grayhood is caught in the worst of it and his manic screaming changes to howling pain as the smell of burning pig, which would otherwise be quite pleasant, rises around him. His faithful and short steed was rendered to blackened ruin beneath him as his armor melds with his flesh and agony brings him stumbling away from him. A nearby Larketian chooses then to relieve the dwarf of his head with the quick and neat swing of his sword. Glendoria and her troops, those that remain unburned, manage to regroup and surge forward at her command, pressing the Larketian army closer to the renewed line now behind them. The clay explosives flew wildly in the wind and the witches halted in their magic to ignite them, both from fear of them landing behind friendly lines and because the spell to counteract the firestorm was now coming to completion. Valrae’s arm ached from the repeated blows of Macon’s rage ax. Her side burned and the blood ran hot and sticky, covering the white armor of her leg so that the half of her was as red as her namesake. She was weakening, her blocking becoming slow and less effective as the King gained ground upon her. Her fire was meant to give herself a breath, a single moment… And then, the Rage Stone cracked and shattered. There was no time for the witch to react, no counter spell saved her from taking the brunt of this force as she flew backward and landed hard on her backside, sliding into the body of a fallen Cenril soldier whose armor clanged painfully against her head. She was struggling to stand, her wand wielding hand pressed against the gaping wound Macon’s ax left in her side, when the winds that carried the fire’s bright devastation finally quelled. Surrounded by the Cenrilian army now, it was clear even behind the dark spots that swam in the High Priestess eyes that they had won this battle. Her emerald eyes locked upon Macon, the distance between them still cleared of bodies from his burst of dark power. Sage’s forest around them was marked with the ruin of his power and still burning from her fire. Her sword hung limply at her side and she made no move to attack him again, her dark stallion appearing from the smoke to trot between them. It was not a graceful mount, but the witch managed to regain her seat and leveled a final look at Macon before sheathing her sword and bringing her bloody hand to her mouth. Three short whistles, amplified by magic, sounding clear over the remaining shouts of war. The back end of Cenril’s army parts, leaving a clear way for Macon’s forces to retreat back toward Larket. They would only attack now to defend themselves, leaving any of the remaining enemy forces free to depart Sage unhindered and unharmed as shouts of victory rose high into the winter air.
Macon roars from his place on the ground. Without The Rage Stone, the pain of his burns is no longer overshadowed by his fury. He flings his axe wildly at Valrae, but without the magical artifact, it no longer flies unnaturally through the air, and simply clatters to the desecrated ground. Wendell has to take over command once the fires clear the air. Troops rally around the downed king and pull him to his feet while creating a protective perimeter. “Larketians! Fall back! Gather the wounded!” The rotund mage calls out while vacating the back lines, soaring back to The fallen Rage Knight. The angry aura still pulses from Macon himself, and a few more Larketians and Cenrilian soldiers still lose their lives as they’re forcefully goaded into acts of aggression from the overflowing of uncontrollable rage as the masses of the Larketian army pull back northward…