Duel:Mathollak v Rava, Match 6 of the 2023 War Games - Larket v Cenril
Duelists: Mathollak vs Rava Duel: Traditional 3 rounds with final defense, 20 minute posting limit. Stakes: Standard, autohit delivered by winner with allowance for final reply. Judges: Daisy, Rumiko, and Orikahn
Battle Field
Mathollak and the Steel Reserve, a group of (mostly human) mercenaries hired by Valrae and Cenril at a discounted price (they believe in the cause), dressed in red and gold, just like their horses. Mathollak and a pile of disgruntled kobolds, liberated from a pit of hunger in Rynvale armored like sunset and blood, armed with shanks and stones. Mathollak and his sympathetic friends, some select Frost Giant exiles, towering figures with golden shields and crimson clubs. Mathollak and his love-crazed kin, worshippers of Delisha in aureate blood robes. And finally, Mathollak and the liberated witches of one of Larket’s most notorious labor camps, a coven of righteous vengeance and justice, wands crackling, restrained. Five different bands with the same frontman coming together to make a horde of excess and passion. All of them meet and mingle on the same side of a crowded plain between Larket and Cenril, eager to make their name, make their money, or take their revenge. They didn’t plan on stopping here, in this nondescript plain, but there was their enemy, coagulating like a rotting disease between the horde and the wall. So the scouts reported to Mathollak. And their counterparts must’ve reported the horde’s approach to King Macon. Catapults were loaded in anticipation, but the stones were displaced, people were far easier to break than walls.
Mathollak himself was dressed in shiny red mithril armor, a cloak of golden fur hanging from his shoulders. Around his waist was the belt of freedom, a magical gift from Larket that gave him the strength to break any chains (giant’s strength). Resting on his shoulder was the axe called Piecemaker, blessed with the ability to shattering stones, bones, gates, and families. It was perfect for breaking down the walls of a tyrant’s home, if he could get there. A monstrous gauntlet hung heavy on his left, mutilated hand, tempered in dragon blood and gilded in silver, it isn’t the ideal shield, but it kills monsters. He saw only monsters when he looked across the rolling plains today. Golden wheat that was soon to be stained and heavy with blood. Crushed flat with boots and bodies and mud. Sometimes, generals would meet and show each other respect, possibly negotiate terms of defeat or surrender. As a courtesy to the coven who blessed his ranks today, he wouldn’t consider it. They represented the cause. One of the hearts of this army, where his horde was merely an arm. Mathollak rides to the front of them on Horse the 4th, his 4th horse, to address them ahead of the blood. “Warriors! We stand at the precipice of victory! If we defeat them here, the armies of Cenril, the armies of love and passion will march on the tyrant’s home! The great goddess Delisha is behind me and many of us here. But we have the love of many others behind us too! They have but one weak and tired god fighting for them, but he fights against freedom and love, and everything we care about! And I know something else. None of us need to be here. We’re here because we chose this! We’re here to spread the freedom and love that we have in excess! Look at them, those miserable conscripts. They hate their lives! They want us to defeat them so we can free them from their burdensome existences; they want us to liberate their loved ones from the tyrant!” He turns his Horse the 4th back to face his enemy across the field and raises his enormous axe-hammer high above his head. “For freedom! For love! For Delisha! For Cenril!”
Quintessa || First there is serenity, the birds singing in the sky and small animals roaming the grassy plains, then the rumbling comes to break this calm before the storm. Even from several miles away the thundering of horses could be heard, dust being kicked up in their wake as they stormed by the hundreds across the plains. Larketian cataphracts- armored horsemen wielding spears and lances moved with haste lead by a kingsguard knight in gleaming golden breastplate, her purple cape billowing behind her as she ushered in her troops to battle. These were Rava’s Riders, and they weren’t alone as they marched to confront the opposing army. For every horseman there followed three footman recruits, lightly armored in leather and wielding shortswords and trowels on their backs. In the rear as auxiliary support, battlemages from the Larketian Academy of Magics also escorted the troops in much lesser numbers, only one mage for every five soldiers, but what they lacked in numbers they made up for in prowess. Once the scouts had reported their sightings of Mathollak’s approaching army it wouldn’t take Rava long to halt the troops and break them up into battalions, utilizing her army’s organization and training to form a wall of soldiers ready for the next order. “Horses, on me!” She shouts as she rushes to the front of the line, to form a protective barrier of armored horses as she turns to address the recruits. First, Rava removes her helm, then she clears her throat, ready to give them a rousing speech. “My brothers and sisters of Larket! This day, destiny beckons us to inscribe our names in the tapestry of history! We stand not merely as soldiers, but as paragons of Vakmatharas Himself! Our enemies are honorless marauders, witch-loving scum that would see our way of life expunged from this world- But our resolve is unshakable, our purpose undeterred! This battle is not for riches or fleeting glory; It's for the very essence of who we are! For our loved ones, our homes, and the freedoms we hold dear! Let the thunder of our war cries resonate across the battlefield as we charge ahead- Let our actions resound through the ages! Let our deeds echo in eternity! For king and country!” With those final words she raises her fist in the air, a roar of approval from the recruits heard from miles away as she turns and places her helm back upon her head, fixing her eyes on the enemy combatants on the horizon.
Round One
Quintessa || Rava narrows her eyes across the battlefield, making her assessments, noting the Frostmaw Giants and catapults that would surely make this battle more tricky to win. She raises a gloved hand and makes a gesture in the air, signaling to her troops to listen for the next order as they slowly quiet down. “Vanguard! Swords! Charge!” She points forward, a third of the foot soldiers drawing their shortswords and rushing ahead with bloodthirsty yells. They move in to meet the approaching forces head-on, hoping to catch them before they could organize, showing no mercy after the speech that their general had provided them. Rava, holding back with the bulk of her forces, makes another signal in the air with her fingers, shouting a new order to the two-thirds that were left behind. “Trowels, now! Start digging!” Following this command, instead of rushing to join the fight with the other third, they all begin to dig, pocking the earth with tiny holes and manufacturing difficult terrain that they continuously fell behind. The battlemages keep behind the digging, using the foot soldiers as a wall of human shields as they look to Rava for their own orders. “Mages!” They don’t wait long. “Ready a volley of magic missiles and wait for my command!” It isn’t until the Larketian vanguard is closing in on the opposing army does Rava give the signal, her voice rising above the roar of battle to command them. “Mages! Target those catapults! Now!” With a crackle of arcane energy, a wave of light blue magic bursts from the ranks of mages, manifesting dozens and dozens of magical arrows that rain down upon the siege engines and those that controlled them, attempting to time this barrage at the precise same moment the Larketian vanguard collided with Mathollak’s gathered forces. “Everyone else, hold! We bide!”
Mathollak raises something other than his axe over his head, a boon from Delisha, kept in a cup of pewter. The front lines of his horde can be seen to do something similar, a gesture of solidarity before they all imbibe. They tilt their cups to their lips, and quickly become filled with Delisha’s love and zeal. Their weapons seem to breathe, inhaling the cold air around them and exhaling hot smoke flecked with flame, with savory smells that fill them with hunger, and that would fill the uninitiated with feelings of fullness and bloat. Hedonistic satyrs scattered throughout the horde, part of the Delishian flock, begin playing a thunderous song of ardor. Heavy drums thump, pumping divinity into the beating hearts of the horde, filling their chests with power and vigor. Mathollak feels the change coming over him, and what can be seen of his skin evolves from its ruddy pink to a deep burgundy, and it continues through to his armor and weapons. Smoke crystallizes on his pauldrons into spikes and his gauntlet melds with his flesh, becoming a chitinous claw of hardened malice as his fractured axe called Piecemaker, bound and invulnerable despite its many cracks, begins to glow. The faultlines light up as if barely containing a core of molten lava. The same energy extends to his horse as it becomes hungry, so hungry. It stomps and pulls at the ground, exhaling the same acrid smoke as many of his minions’ weapons. It chews clean through its bit, unwilling and unable to be controlled any longer, and Mathollak discards his pewter cup and calls to the horde, in a bellowing voice much louder than any mere human could. “My beloved! Now! CHARGE!” And they do, almost all of them. They swarm around him, passing him and leaving them in the dust. The human mercenaries and kobold shankers go first, the most eager. “Catapults, now!” Mathollak gives them enough time, and then he begins to charge too, practically at his horse’s whim, he beats a frantic pace in and out of his own forces until he’s able to meet the front line at practically the same time. The catapults unleash undulating payloads, messy piles of grease, oils, and hay. The witches in his number finally ignite their wands and light them up in mid air, ensuring that the nasty bombs would collapse and spread across the battle lines of Rava’s back lines if they weren’t somehow deflected. That was the only shot they’d be able to get off before they were dismantled by mages and their magic missiles. Finally, the armies clash. Much of them are simply ridden down by the cataphracts, but many more pass by them, determined to tear out the heart of Rava’s army. Human mercenaries clash their weapons against shields, acrid smoke floating over them and filling their enemies with sluggishness and allowing the kobolds to slink underneath and shank joints with slender knives. Mathollak himself careens wildly through both enemy and friend, his wild horse leading him in what’s nearly a zigzag until he can finally meet the general head on. “You! I remember you!” He shouts at Rava, recalling the barely successful gambit in the woods. He grabs the reins of his horse for balance as he raises the axe over his head once more, and this time, he hurls it. It spins like a sawblade, carving a ravine through the wheat and earth and people as it burns its way toward Rava. With all her troops surrounding her, can she even avoid the ripping death that’s headed her way?
Round Two
Quintessa || “Watch those damned catapults!” Rava shouts, but it is much too late for the sappers in the rear. While the mages were savvy, employing short range teleportation spells to dodge the oil and fire, many of the foot soldiers, most of them recruits, fail to notice the payload before it rains upon them. Their screams of agony cause Rava to growl under her helm, her dark eyes fixating on Mathollak as he calls out to her. “This battle will be your last, Delishian!” Is all the attention she gives him as she returns her focus to the vanguard currently duking it out before her. The light footmen realistically stood no chance against the brunt of Mathollak’s forces, even with the mages plinking at them with their spells after the catapults were dispatched, the charging units were never meant to do more than slow the advance of the Cenrilians. They fight to the last man, giving time for Rava to initiate the next stage of her plan. “Horsemen… All of you, on me- Charge!” With the full force of the Larketian Cataphracts behind them, Rava’s Riders charge forward with steel and fury, coming in to smash against those that had just slaughtered her vanguard. The massive warhorses, clad in scalemail and bred for battle, trample over the foot soldiers with ease, no worries about trampling their own forces as they crash down like a tidal wave of metal upon the advancing armies. Rava herself leads this charge, a gleaming bronze spear already coated in blood raised above her head as she rallies her troops. “Never give up! Never surrender! Send them all to Vakmatharas! Mages- smoke them out! Firebolts now!” While the Cataphracts engaged the army, the battlemages began to conjure fire, dozens of volleys of firebolts aimed not at Mathollak’s forces, but rather the dried grass that was on behind them. The vegetation quickly sets aflame, forming a growing brushfire to flank the enemy forces. Now the real fighting begins. With the fires growing on both sides of the field, Rava cuts down any who stand in her way as she rides towards their General, Mathollak, her bronze spear set like a lance as she attempts to ride-by-attack him just like she was taught in jousting practice, her loyal riders sacrificing their very lives to make the opening as his Peicemaker rips through them like a knife through butter.
Mathollak sees that his axe has missed Rava, but notes its location. He hardly needs to, in times like this, it -calls- to him. He anticipated wrongly, expecting the horses to charge first, but they do arrive now, and trample through his foot soldiers that were making mincemeat of her vanguard. In response, kobolds and humans pair up, the small reptilian creatures clambering atop the shoulders of their human friends to engage the horsemen with missiles. Delishian missiles were, very often, people. Such is what they were this time, and the kobolds spring themselves away from their human chariots in the seconds before they’re run down, intent to catch the horsemen by the chest or even the head and pull them from their horses. “Now,” calls Mathollak. “Tunnel of death!” The few giants that there were, form up at the perimeter of the frontlines and slam their shields into the ground. They push them forward like plows, shoving them through Rava’s forces and trying to squish them into a pile, a gradually tightening bottleneck with the Larketians channeled into the killing floor. Mathollak’s forces sift under and between these shields as quickly as they can. The plan can’t go off perfectly however, as the grounds between the mess-making horde and the whispering horde are separated by a wall of fire. The witches make quick work of this blaze however, calling upon nature in the form of a gusting wind that twists through the flames, choking them out in the whirlwind. Their phase two, their part of the tunnel of death, now begins. They begin to chant as one, calling upon a massive torrent of arcane energy that grows increasingly unstable as it forms almost a miniature sun above their circle. Then it’s unleashed, and a beam 15 feet in diameter explodes down the two opposing walls created by the giants’ massive shields. The people and things it comes into contact with, will most likely be disintegrated. Meanwhile, Rava has caught up with Mathollak and attempts to push him from his horse. Maybe it was hubris, or maybe he had a plan, but he seems to let it hit him. He catches it at the moment it hits his chest and is flung bodily from his horse and pushed into the mud. No doubt she would drop it, but he’s caught her horse by the saddle. He pulls himself up to its bridle in a great feat of strength, and heaves it down as he presses his boots scraping against the ground in front of him. The horse can’t anticipate such a sudden turn, and tumbles over, possibly even flipping over the rider. Mathollak would be ready wherever Rava may have landed, and raises her horse above his head. With little remorse, he attempts to crush her with her very own horse, armor and all, and flatten her against the mud and blood soaked plains. He nearly falters once the horse hits the ground, and clutches at the part of his chest wear a splintered piece of the lance sticks out.
Round Three
Quintessa || Rava has a second to feel smug about her unseating Mathollak from his horse only a second before her own horse is summarily planted in the dirt. The impact of the blow knocks the wind out of her, her entire world spinning as she attempts to make sense of the chaos of battle around her. She rises to her feet, her helmet knocked to the ground, her dark eyes dazed as she slowly spins in a circle. “Commander!” The shout of one of her lieutenants snaps her back as he rides by, a hand held out to lift her upon his horse as she regains her barings. “Riders!” She shouts, holding the bleeding lump slowly forming on her forehead, “On me! Reposition!” Rava’s Riders had already sustained enough losses, they needed to put a cap on the trap they had set for Mathollak’s forces. For the Cenrilians it must seem like everything is going to plan. The Larketian ranks break and they retreat to rejoin the bulk of the army, slipping through the ditches and holes the footmen had dug prior, allowing the frost giants and mercenaries to take more and more possession of the battlefield- but it was all a ruse. Meanwhile the battlemages were at work conjuring the wind, causing the burning grass behind the Cenrilian forces to transform into a proper brushfire. As the Larketians retreat, the last of their forces staying to engage them completely obliterated by the Death Tunnel, the fires corral Mathollak’s army like sheep, boxing them in and turning their own strategy against them. The last of the riders make it back behind the damaged terrain to prepare their last stand, Rava dismounting her lieutenant’s horse to rally the troops one last time. “This is it, our final stand! We hold them here! We hold the line!” With spears and shovels and swords, the Larketian forces bunker down, completely cornered, prepared to force the Cenrilians to fight them one-on-one on ground they couldn’t get proper footing, filtering them in like ants as the fires continue to nip at their heels.
Mathollak grimaces as his foe evades his grasp once more, but as her cavalry follows her, thinking to pass them by, he begins to sprint, holding the hole in his chest closed with one hand. “A party and I wasn’t invited?” He asks as he picks something up out of the mud and hurls it at the last straggling member of Rava’s fleeing horsemen. An entire human, as it happens, spins through the air until it knocks the rider off its horse. Mathollak takes its place and follows Rava back, scooping up the Piecemaker out of the muck as he does. He races the riders back to her, catching up to one and tearing him from his horse to sit in front of him with his claws in his neck. In doing so, he sees the trenches and pits dug. “My beloveds!” He bellows. “It’s a trap! Advance with caution!” But they would advance, nothing could stop that now. In fact, caution might even be impossible for them in this state. “Let’s start the magic!” Behind him, witches once again begin summoning a whirlwind to dissipate the fires that burn before them. The delishian clerics hold aloft something dripping and drooping, and though they’re all strewn throughout the horde, their chanting synchronizes. In the crescendo of some strange other language, they all pierce the livers of their sacrificial oxen. A mass healing spell targeting what members of the horde yet survives sifts through the air in the form of a savory smelling smoke, that seeks the nostrils of Mathollak and his fighters. As Mathollak’s wound begins to heal, the lance’s tip is pushed out of his chest and disappears into the muck at his horse’s feet. Those tired from the fighting may find themselves bolstered and energized. Those who haven’t been killed outright and lay dying may pull themselves out of the blood and mud to fight again, and do so with vigor and whatever weapons they may find on the field of battle. They pursue their enemies as quickly as they can, but they are on foot so they do have a ways to go. The giants, having completed their primary objective, lay their shields across trenches and holes to act as bridges for those coming behind them. Kobolds who know their way around the underground, jump gleefully into the pits that may still have people in them, and would manically cling and plunge their slender knives into throats and groins and armpits. As the last of the riders makes it back behind the damaged terrain, it turns out to be none other than Mathollak, who had seated in front of him, a dead or dying member of Rava’s Riders. He lets him fall as he approaches, wielding the piecemaker once again. “No!” He calls to Rava as he grabs the reins of the horse and uses them to steady himself as he rises like a stuntman to his feet atop the saddle. “No final stands!” He leads the horse in a charge destined for the neck of Rava’s new horse, and when they would crash, he would try to fall into her with his body and his axe as he holds it just under the heavy wedge of stone that was its head. In the last moment, he flings himself bodily at her and attempts to punch through her chest with the head of his axe.
Final Defense
Quintessa || Rava had no secret weapon. She had no miracles from the gods coming her way. She only has her resolve and her training to get out of this alive. “Javelins, there!” she cries, pointing out whenever their enemies had turned their shields into bridges. “Lancers, set for the charge, they’re gonna hit us hard! Mages!” There is a frantic note to Rava’s voice. She knows there is no more running from Mathollak now. She knows he’ll be here himself in a moment and that only she can stop him. The wind from the escaped witch’s magic rushes around them, inflamed by the power of the oxen’s sacrifice- though with the amount of blood already spilled it was hard to tell the difference. “Mages!” She repeats again, but this time it’s too late for orders. Mathollak drops down to behead the horse she had just rode, her lieutenant crashing to the ground alongside it. Rava is quick to spin her bronze spear in a defensive motion, but the power of the Peicemaker was undeniable. Her spear is easily snapped in half by the stony blade of the ax as it passes through it to connect directly with her breastplate, forcing a massive dent as she reels backwards, blood and spit flying wordlessly from her mouth. “General!” Cries from her soldiers ring out as they drag her back to the spellcasters, who in the meantime without orders had created magical shields of force. Without their general this fight was over, but was Rava down and out? They cut her breastplate from her body, allowing her to finally get a breath as she sputters out the rest of the blood in lungs, not wanting to think about the injuries as she parts her lips to speak- But would it be a surrender or the final order to capture Mathollak and end this battle for Larket?
Winner: Rava
Quintessa || It would be neither a surrender nor a call to take prisoners when Rava finishes coughing up blood, grabbing a recruit and pulling herself back up to her feet with a renewed burst of adrenaline. “Kill them all!” She croaks out horsley, shooting a glare at the mages to finally give them the order she meant to before Mathollak waylaid her. “Drop those shields… Mass bull strength- All of you!” The crumbling and faltering Larketian forces, pinned and cornered like an animal, reacted in much the way one would expect an animal to react; They bite back. As the mages buff the whole of the remaining forces, they drive the mixed Cenrilian forces backwards into the waiting pits and holes, tripping them up as they fled, cutting them down as they attempted to escape. They slaughter every warrior- human, giant, or kobold- that gets caught by their trap, leaving very few left to escape through the flaming fields. As for Mathollak? Surrounded by all sides, the recruits take half hearted swings at him, wearing him out, letting him either surrender honorably or fight honorably until they can subdue him. Even with the rage of battle still in her eyes and the pain from Mathollak’s ax in her chest, Rava faces him down with the support of her troops, landing a nonlethal blow with the sharp half of her spear right in his shoulder. With the day won, and Mathollak captured, the cheers from the last remaining footmen echo all the way back to Larket as they bring their new prize back to the king. Rava’s riders might have sacrificed their lives, but now they had a valuable hostage- a more than fair trade some might say.
Mathollak fights like a crazed tiger as his troops are decimated utterly by the Larketians, not seeming to realize that the battle is lost. Many of the furthest ranks at the back of the horde begin to make their retreat, scattering into the smoke and escaping on brooms or otherwise. Mathollak himself is eventually worn down so much that he can hardly defend against attacks. As weariness replaces fighting spirit, and he sees the landscape around him, the hell they’ve wrought against this place and their people becomes so clear. The once peaceful plain has been turned into a hellish swamp of every worst kind of fluid, and all the worst kinds of death. He swings his axe one more sluggish time before Rava’s spear lands in his shoulder and he’s forced down. With Delisha’s enchantment wearing off, the loss of blood and exhaustion takes its toll suddenly and drastically. He falls backwards and into a deep, dark, and restless sleep, to awake presumably in one of the tyrant’s dungeons.