Duel:Rawnie v Rikailin
Rawnie vs. Rikailin
- Judges: Liana, Vyrisas, and Jacklin
- Winner: Rikailin
Rikailin stands motionless upon the parched topography of the desert, a stark and easily-discernible figure in the wide-open space to north and south. She does not need the dubious gift of sight to locate her opponent in the approaching confrontation, having at once registered the lycan's unique olfactory signature; thus, she stands some sixty paces distant from Rawnie, facing the girl without seeing her or, it would seem, without much care as to her actions. The only modicum of courtesy she affords her foe is in the guise of a slow forward bow with arms thrown forward over her head, a strange yet elegant burlesque whose hidden motive might be missed - till it is too late to react, at least - by even a quick-witted observer. Down she arches, until two things happen simultaneously. Feathers of Rikailin's midnight hair tickle the sand, disgorging a scattering of pine needles from their erstwhile confines in that dark tangle of locks; at the same moment, Katr'Liana, the staff which had been clutched crosswise in the druid's clenched hands, comes to rest atop a tiny dune of tightly-packed granules. There is another split-second of pause in which Rikailin remains bowed low with her weapon on the ground, and then all hell breaks loose. The pine needles, having already begun to sink into the sand on either side of the small hillock just in front of the vampiric druid, disappear completely and begin to burrow through the sand, having been augmented immensely in both makeup and machination by the ignition of magic caused by the concussion of staff on ground. The small bump of hardened grit where Katr'Liana rests rolls forward with hideous speed, bracketted on either side by the haphazard underground entourage of missiles, intending to explode with terrible force when it reaches Rawnie's form. The needles themselves, harmless on their own, will hopefully erupt from concealment in such fashion as to riddle the girl's feet and ankles with a score of vicious gouges and slashes should she attempt to evade the far more poignant threat of the rolling ball of grit which means to smash her flat. Beyond this point, Rikailin discards all pretense of calm, springing backward and upright in one light motion with Katr'Liana's tip now pointing skyward. The druid stands tall in much the same place as before, murmuring silently as her fuselade seeks its target, waiting for the lycan's misery to commence.
Rawnie stands much similar to Rikailin; motionless yet on edge. She has to be on edge, there's no choice, especially when the scent of magic and death assaults one's nose enough to draw a watery depth to sabled eyes. With each muscle of the lycanthrope pregnant with potential energy, each movement the druid before her constructs causes the more appropriately dressed gypsy to twitch; the bend at Rika's waist, and then the extending over her arms over her head, and finally when her opponents hair swings down to scatter the pine needles across the loose ground, Rawnie jerks back a step, and within a series of gut wrenching 'pop's and whimpers as well as 'rip's from clothing and perhaps skin alike, where the gypsy once stood now rests a tawny wolf with raised hackles and barred teeth. Born in the desert and raised along it's rough terrain, it's secrets and wily ways are no stranger to the wolfish woman, and thus, when the ball of hardened gritty earth forms and barrels her way, the tan lupine jumps. Not high enough to clear the dangerous ball and not off of it either. Instead, her aforementioned jump is just high enough to not be considered a hop, but either way, upon touching her padded paws back along the silky grains, a wall forms. A wave of sand, cresting and rolling in place before contact is met with the constructed ball from Rikalin. The construction of the wolf's wave doesn't surprise her, for years and years within the sea of tawny granules have passed the generation of secrets onto her, but alas, the barrier Rawnie summons isn't enough to protect her from the force of the blow, for as soon as the two earthen entity's meet, a thundering 'boom' echoes around the barren area, and what once was of the two is now nothing but lifeless sand once more and Rawnie is rolling amongst it, scrambling against the loose ground to regain her feet. No harm done -yet- to the animalistic gypsy, but the distance between the two is greater than it once was, lingering around one hundred paces instead of just sixty. However, that doesn't hamper the gypsy a bit and despite the sand and the loss of traction across its grainy surface, Rawnie seems to glide across it's surface, legs out stretched to gain more distance with each stride towards the druid. Quickly the wolf has erased the distance between herself and her opponent, and with enough room for a single leap to be atop of Rikalin, Rawnie snarls, a gutteral and rabid sound, and within the noise the earth quivers and shy away almost as if sinking into itself and rapidly at that. Should Rikalin not move in time, she'll find herself prisoner of the barren wasteland, or prey to the gaping maw of the now airborne wolf who decided to take that leap with hopes that it would distract her from the slowly descending ground.
Rikailin remains still, raised now on the balls of her feet as if preparing to spring. She hears the evidence of Rawnie's transformation and marks the wolf's scent as paws thud against the ground between them; muscles tense to clockspring tightness in preparation for swift and decisive movement. Highly attuned to the earth and the greater majority of its potential trickery, Rikailin is alerted to retreat from Rawnie not by the latter's leap, but instead by the realization that standing still will sink her into an opening pit beneath the spot where previously she had stood. The druid bounds backward, staff striking the ground butt-first, then flies airborne again as if propelled upward with greater force by Katr'Liana's collision with the earth. A grim smile spreads across her features as Rawnie's body whistles to earth in front of her, but quickly fades to a grimace of pain as her left foot twists beneath her descending weight. A bleached bone, traitorous in its placing, has caused some as-yet-undiagnosed detriment to the druid's left foot - a sprained ankle, perhaps, or a serious muscle pull - which sends her sprawling into a graceless spread-legged seated position on the sand, facing Rawnie at a distance of perhaps no more than seven feet. Katr'Liana, oddly enough, rests upright in the sand, buried almost a foot along its length in the pulverized rock of the arid desert, and Rikailin's right hand reflexively clutches the weapon tighter as she wrenches it free. Quick as a flash, the vampire's left hand dips into a leather drawstring pouch at her waist, emerging but a split second later clutching two objects: one is a blossom of some sort, furled tight and coloured a deep, infected red; the other is an egg-sized chunk of pure silver mined from the caves of Xalious far to the northwest. Rikailin hisses through clenched teeth, closes her eyes against the rivulets of sweat which pour twin stinging courses into them from her hairline, and hurls both items at Rawnie in such fashion that the blossom flies free first with the silver following instantly after. Even as this happens, the druid flattens herself and, staff in hand, rolls away from the proposed point of impact, hoping that she will be in time to avoid the wrath of the silver-tinged inferno which will undoubtedly beset the lycan gypsy ere long. As she rolls, Rikailin takes a fleeting moment to bask in the pride of her fiery creation: a perfectly ordinary-looking flower-petal which, when struck hard by something, would explode and disgorge its contents. In this case, the fire-enchanted rosebud, struck by silver, will spell serious trouble for the wolf in its path. Once more Rikailin levers herself upright, now favouring her left leg badly and putting as little weight as possible on that wounded appendage. She stands perhaps twenty-five paces in front of and to the right of the wolf, facing it sidelong as its agony hopefully escalates. Meanwhile, a chitonous shape begins to heave its bulk across the barren expanse behind the beleaguered lycan female, drawn by the smell of both its blood and its transformation. Tsekaya, having heard the hiss of her mistress, has come.
Rawnie ||That snarl that summoned the pit below Rikailin is heaved out once more, but at the prospect of getting bludgered with a sizable chunk of silver. She had seen first hand the extent of danger it could present to a lycan as Rhian had died of it's heinous effects. The option to dive into the pit that she created wasn't an one she looked forward to, but to save her stupid self was more practical than allowing the silver to take it's toll on her. So, without opting to attack Rikailin while she's down, as soon as Rawnie touches the ground once more, she springs backwards. Unfortunately this movement is put into motion as fast as she could have hoped for, and thus the infectious looking bud lands against her flank, exploding on contact and draws out a series of high screeched yelps and propels her backwards while the silver dives into the newly opened wounds and reeks it's havoc upon her body. The descent into the pit in the middle of the desert is quick, and the yelps die out once the hungry hole has filled itself with gypsy and sand alike, leaving a perhaps welcoming thought that the barrage is over. However, after a few minutes, a blip in the sand makes a creatures present known, and slowly, that small bump begins a serpentine track towards Rikailin. Granules of sand spark off the creature's bulge, and as it nears the druid, the fraying grains grow worse; the cloud the snaked trail produces thickens to a nearly choking decree, and swirls about like a tornado with power to buffer the face off stone, and flesh from bones, and once the faceless being has drawn close enough, the grainy earth that had concealed it shoots upwards, further thickening the sandy storm and revealing a horribly disfigured wolf whose legs hind legs look limp and useless while gaping wounds are irritated by the granules that have sought home within the gore and mess, but despite the gashes and silver posioning the lupine woman is suffering through, a wolfish, crazed grin spreads over her maw, and with lightening like speed, she snaps outward towards the already lame leg of Rikailin, hoping to snare it and thus drag her back below the surface of the sandy sea.
Rikailin looks on in blind triumph, teeth bared, as Rawnie howls her pain into the unforgiving quiet. Magic, thick and viscous and alien somehow, seems to be at work on the sand in front of her and, utterly untrusting of its intent, the druid begins to skip backward on her good leg, having left Katr'Liana to stand upright where she had previously stood. She retreats away from the rising cyclone of sand but maintains her connection with Katr'Liana as best she can, spitting out the occasional mouthful of tiny stones whilst using her free hand to snap her black visor down over her face to further shield it. Now, her laboured breath echoes back to her from the protective plating which guards her mouth and useless eyes, further inhibiting her ability to track the wolf by smell but saving her countenance the worst ravages of this tornado. In the next instant, Rikailin goes down, striking the ground with both hands and sending one tremendous jolt outward. Woven with three imperatives during her retreat, this complex counter-attack is both sly and vicious. First, Katr'Liana extrudes a gauntlet of three-inch spikes along its length, then begins to spin around like an auger but with no evident purpose. Second is the ridge of sand which, when struck by Rikailin's descending palms, instantly solidifies into a rising wall of sandstone, brought into being by all her pent-up might. As if by arcane means, this wall, perhaps ten feet high and twice its height in breadth, rumbles up from the earth and then begins to press away from its creator, meaning to ensure both that the vampire which summoned it is spared further harm from the sandstorm and, should it be necessary, that Rawnie is pressed backward toward the most dangerous threat which awaits her. Tsekaya, caring little for the sand that hisses and pings off her armoured thorax, continues inexorably forward, her blind imperative to find the maimed wolf and tear it asunder. Due to Tsekaya's innate link with her mistress, she understands - at least in some basic fashion - that the spinning spike-laced staff is a ruse meant to fool Rawnie into believing she is attacking the leg she had intended, and thus she endeavours to keep clear of its ferocious teeth. Rikailin, winded now and near the point of exhaustion, lies prone behind her impromptu barricade, sporting numerous unnoticed gashes and wounds from the furious sandstorm of the gypsy's making, weaponless but not defenseless, hurt but not defeated; in her rising pain, she wishes with all her considerable might that Rawnie's own torment is ten times greater.
Rawnie cackles; a mixture of furious coughs, whimpers and snarls make up the wolfish sound, but never the less, her teeth ping against the staff Rikailin, but despite her newly aquired knowledge of the staff, she continues to work her jaws along it's shaft, gnawing on it continuously while still flopped over on the ground. However, once the sound of an approaching entity is heard and felt, Rawnie merely lifts her head in acknowledgement to the oncoming creature and offers naught but a howl in greeting. However, that howl, as welcoming as it might have sounded, works its way through the sand to the north, quivering the granules into movement so that her message is carried across it's dead expanse. The storms that wreck havoc to the north are thus then signaled by the sand messengers, and the brutish lightening is relocated to the current residence of Rawnie and her prey. Despite being half lame, the tawny lupine works herself upright into a strange seated position, and with a series of whimpers, the cyclone of sand that barrages the poor vampire turns it's cheek to find Tsekaya, and quickly, its cone figure scurries over the loosened earth, dragging up more sand to fuel it's strength before finally encircling the summoned creature. As the lightening flashing, it occasionally touches down on the sand, frying the grains and producing strange figurines of glass, and with each bolt sent to the earth, Tsekaya draws closer to falling prey to the unforgiving electricity. And finally, it happens, the cyclone of sand swirls annoyingly around the creature, and the lightening storm called upon strikes out in vengeance, striking the circling sand at the right time to produce a glass coffin for the creature inside before the storm turns it's vicious ways towards Rikailin. In a strange explosion, the clouds guilty of birthing the storm release it's pent up rage, causing a series of purple bolts towards the vampire, hoping to fulfill Rawnie's revenge.
Rikailin worms her way forwarrd on her belly as Rawnie's howl rips the roiling air, eventually fetching up behind her still northward-moving wall of sandstone with her fingertips. At her touch, the wall ceases its inexorable grinding progress toward Rawnie and the glass-guarded giant scorpion nearby, shivering in place at the touch of all this wild magic at work around and beneath it. Rikailin presses her visor-veiled visage against the ground, the knot of sharproot at her throat now sporting a faint philagree of sand particles, and channels the last vestiges of her fading strength into this ultimate task. Slowly but steadily, Rikailin's body begins to sink, and with the same relentless movement, the wall of sandstone begins to arch backward, leaning at an increasing angle until, tweaked out of true beyond endurance, the great slab slams flat upon the spot where Rikailin had been. The druid herself, by this point, is in a hollow several feet below the ground, summoning back her staff by way of a tiny tunnel linking its current position with her own. Rawnie's arcane thunderbolts pummel the sandstone and tear it apart, peppering Rikailin's upthrust back with shrapnel which scores her flesh in dozens of places, but the true horror of the electricity is muted by the now-blasted barrier. Spent, agonized but alive, Rikailin at long last seizes the staff from its point of entry, notes the prickle of needles and the score of teeth on its formerly pristine finish and sighs softly to herself. Tsekaya is disabled but mostly unharmed, her weapon's function has not been noticeably diminished and her own wounds will heal in due time, but the gypsy is neither within reach nor her power to finish for good.