Duel:Pelarin vs. Vuryal

Part of the Surface Tension Arc

Location: The Sky Above Sage
Duelists: Pelarin (Surface Allies), Vuryal (Drow Allies)
Judges: Leone and Argent
Stakes: If Vuryal wins, in a critical moment in the battle as Vuryal uses his spatiomancy talents and Pelarin used his cryomancy talents, he manages to redirect Pelarin's ice blast on the ground below and kill the retreating, injured elves in Sage Forest.
             If Pelarin wins, in a critical moment in the battle as Vuryal used his spatiomancy talents and Pelarin used his cryomancy talents, he manages to disrupt/manipulate/otherwise redirect Vuryal's spatiomancy move so Ice Blast inside Trist'oth, which has never never seen snow or ice before, and subdue it with a terrible blizzard for two days. 

The Sky Above South Sage

The day is clear and crisp, a perfect spring afternoon. Puffy white clouds drift along to east and west, and a layer of gray seems to be looming at a distance from a southerly direction, but for now, this patch of sky is blameless and blue. And then the dragon appears, bursting free of the clouds to the south, resplendent and silver. Light forms a blinding corona about his form, a halo which has been slightly enhanced by the dragon's own considerable magic. He looses a deafening roar of challenge to all and sundry nearby. Today, battle will be joined. Today, someone will be made to pay dearly for the decimation the drow have wrought upon the elven people.

Vuryal is out for a walk. Well, as much of a walk as one would expect a religious fanatic preaching the coming of the end of the world could have, but nonetheless, he walks as the ground beneath lets loose a faint crunch with each succinct step. Tilting his head aloft, the chronomancer catches sight of the dragon overhead, whose roar echoes and makes the trees whimper from its piercing sting. “The priest of Arh’Nuk does not like to be disrupted by rambling beasts. Perhaps a lesson is needed to be taught this day.” As the words flow free from the lips of the parasite like honey pouring from a honeypot, Vuryal slides the archaic Book of Arh’Nuk back into its hidden spot within his right sleeve as the religious ankh remains held loosely in his left. Ascended no more, but ascension happens to the messenger of the gods, gravity loosening its bounds upon the dark elf’s body and allowing him to move freely now into the skies above.

Pelarin looks down and sees the figure of Vuryal ascending. "Challenger!" he bellows. "Your last mistake!" Pelarin's voice is a booming cannonade in the quiet. Spreading his wings to their fullest extent and arching his back, the dragon shoots skyward, still looking down and tracking his prey through half-lidded saurian eyes. As he climbs, the mage taps into two of the five rune-stones embedded between his scales. The first, marked with a glyph of chill, coats his body in thick frost; expecting the imminent frigidity, the silver dragon does not flinch or shiver. This is a creature who has trained himself rigorously in cold climates, unlikely to be fazed by such small things as ice and snow and cold. The second runestone activates as Pelarin's jaws gape wide. A torrent of rocks, broken trees, ice and wind burst from his maw and howl downward toward Vuryal, and the second runestone, imbued with the arcana of velocity, imparts to it a preternatural speed. Aided by both the impetus of the rune and the gravity of the planet itself below, the veritable avalanche, which has been superchilled by Pelarin's own near-frozen body, intends to flay, crush and batter Vuryal on its way to the ground. Having loosed this fuselade, Pelarin levels out somewhat, the better to focus on the icy hell he has wrought below. He is looking for signs of his foe as he cruises the sky, whereupon he will immediately set the frozen onslaught off in that direction; he can exercise a rudimentary control over it until it dissipates, and since it has both runes and Pelarin's own magic to fuel it, Vuryal may be hard-pressed to avoid thorough and chilling destruction until the assault spends its frozen fury.

Vuryal affords a cold gaze at the chilly reception he has received at the hands of this ice dragon. Bringing the ankh up to have it face the forthcoming blizzard exuded by the beast, the otherworldly priest shuffles words of praise to Arh’Nuk into the rapidly deteriorating scenario. In a split second, a black light encompasses the floating chronomancer, his robes heaving to and fro with each passing air current. The light expands rapidly, as if forming an expanding orb before the icy cataclysm meets its bounds. The avalanche begins to be swallowed up by the energy, as if gravity itself were separating each atomic particle of the material, rendering it into nothingness. It is then that the bubble suddenly bursts, careening its energies in all directions, dissipating rapidly and feasting on the frozen landslide. A frozen piece of rock assails itself upon the chronomancer, escaping the demise that its brethren faced, knocking the parasite out of his steady hover and drawing forth a line of crimson upon his forehead. “Not the warm welcome I was expecting…” states Vuryal, an insipid tone given to the last of those words. It is then that he reaches out with his right hand, as if beckoning something to come forth. In an instant, the familiar staff of the chronomancer appears, the amber stone alit upon its crown as it is now leveled towards Pelarin. “Ashes to ashes, beast…” Upon the dragon, a tingling sensation would probably be occurring now, as the wings of the beast begin to age rapidly, the bounds of time radically sped up on just those flight-worthy appendages as a cruel smirk draws across the pale visage of Vuryal.

Pelarin does indeed feel the briefest of tingles upon his scales and within his flesh; it is an unpleasant sensation, to say the least. Pelarin has gleaned that this is some sort of fell magic on the part of his adversary below, for his eyes have not missed the levelling of the arcane staff. Only when his wings begin to grow heavier and thicker does Pelarin realize what is happening, and with haste bordering on panic he taps the third of his rune-stones, which flares to life and grants his entire form the enchantment of levitation. Then, Pelarin begins to laugh. "I am not old, fool!" he roars. "Dragons strengthen as they age!" His laughter is titanic and terrible; it is also an act of bravado, because he knows that his time in the sky is now limited. The rune of levitation will allow him to fly relatively unimpeded for awhile, but its power will run out; Vuryal's magic will eventually render Pelarin's wings crippled and weak, but this may take some time. As such, Pelarin does the only logical thing. He tucks his wings in a little and dives straight for Vuryal before veering off to one side just before reaching the chronomancer. He uses his mighty tail as a battering-ram, meaning to deliver a powerful side-swipe on his way past. As he does this, pelarin rolls over in midair below the parasite and reaches up with all four limbs and with mouth open wide. He then snaps his wings open and arches them, hoping to cut off Vuryal's escape that way and to thus harry him into his deadly clutches. All of this is done with almost no thought at all; aerial combat is one of Pelarin's great strengths as a silver dragon. From his cavernous throat, Pelarin now issues his trademark breath weapon, snapping his head to and fro in order to essentially spread the blast radius. If he cannot bash Vuryal to death, or cannot first trap him with wings and then catch him with tooth and claw, then he will attempt to refrigerate him and thus render him unable to fight.

Vuryal glares as the dragon remains in flight even after the timely assault upon its wings. Seeing the beast creep forward at a tantalizing speed, the chronomancer soon catches sight of the runes embedded into the scales of his foe, their glimmering hues raising the spirits of Vuryal much like a buried treasure would to a pirate. “Ah, pretties.” Taking notice of the flight pattern of the creature, the dark priest allows for a well-placed gravity bubble to propel him actually directly at the oncoming dragon. The tail swipe narrowly misses the rapidly, atomic-propelled elven missile, the staff disappearing as if the winds blew it back into the netherworld. The ankh, however, now goes up before the chronomancer, the tinges of the cold breath now fully belting the parasite as if it is welcomed. And indeed it is. The ethereal ankh begins to harden hastily, becoming a weapon unto itself. Within the grasp of Pelarin, dodging the teeth and wings and other nasty things that make a dragon, Vuryal plummets onward in furious succession. His body now coated in the icy breath, toying with his own body temperature as it dips ever so closer to the land of no return for this form, the final assault is commenced. The ankh, now frozen completely, is delivered squarely into the closest rune stone, hoping to crack, shatter, or loosen it from its prison within Pelarin as the atomically-powered force of Vuryal’s body is delivered into the dragon’s midsection. A truly epic body slam, one that would make any gladiator proud.

Pelarin is in perfect position to watch Vuryal as he descends. he is, however, not able to dodge aside from the oncoming attack. He has placed one rune upon each of his legs and the other at his throat, and it is the one on his left foreleg that Vuryal's weapon strikes as Pelarin draws his foot across his chest in a defensive position. This runestone happens to be the source of the aforementioned glow, and triggers with concussive force when Vuryal destroys it. What once was a bright nimbus of light now becomes a silent detonation of radiance which would surely blind both combattants and anyone nearby. Rocked hard and tumbling downward at an alarming rate, left foreleg shattered, Pelarin does two things in quick succession. First, he latches all of his other uninjured legs around the parasite as they both free-fall toward the ground. Then, using the last of his runestones, this one blessed with a glyph-word that empowers transmutation, Pelarin adopts his natural form in the blink of an eye. He instantly falls free of Vuryal and, screaming with pain, uses wind magic, a sphere with which he is well-acquainted, to propel himself sideways and slightly upward as he falls, meaning to soften his landing and free himself from his assailant's groundward trajectory at the same time. Now the dragon is in humanoid form, and even scales cannot completely deaden the impact. His injured arm looses bolts of agony up into his shoulder when he hits, and his light-dazzled eyes cannot see his foe, but Pelarin is expecting to hear a crunching impact somewhere nearby as Vuryal's devastating body-slam is abruptly halted by the unyielding skin of Sage Forest.

Winner: Pelarin (Surface Allies)