Duel:Satoshi v Splag

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Satoshi vs. Splag

Below the Bridge

Just south of the bridge, a winding, dirt path heads back around and under it. Dark at all times, the air is foul and filled with the tainted, coppery scent of fresh blood. Those of more sensitive eyes that require little light might make out the piles of bones laying in several corners, while those less fortunate are most likely doomed to trip and possibly join them. Oddly, wind blowing through seems to bear with it the soft sound of a child's laughter, filling the place with it's mischievous melody. A filthy river used by Cenril's residents to dump sewage into runs through this area adding a filthy stench and attracting disgusting creatures.


  • Splag is a white fermin and seems to be a sewer mage.
  • Satoshi is a vampiric feline and seems to be a Ice Magus.



Splag paced nervously on his side of the wonderfully foul river, deep in the darkened gorge under the bridge. The fermin's dark red eyes had no trouble picking out the details of the chasm, from the bones to the mounds of trash and sewage that clumped up occasionally along the banks. On the other side of the river stood his opponent, some Washed woman by the name of Satoshi. He narrowed his eyes and twitched his nose, trying to figure out what it was about her that seemed so familiar, yet so different. He knew he'd never seen her before, but the scent had the flavor of something half-remembered that he couldn't quite recall. She seemed content to wait for him to make the first move, but he hesitated - he never liked to be the one to start a fight with an enemy of unknown strength. You just never knew when they might be stronger than you. He shook himself all over, trying to relax, then scampered across the ground near to one of the bone piles, planning on using it for cover later. Knowing that she was waiting for him to get on with it, he touched the spot on his forehead where the Lich Queen had blessed him, then threw both forepaws in her direction, alternately flinging small spheres that glowed a sickly green from each of them. Each sphere zipped across the river toward the other mage, and exploded in an acidic gloop when it impacted on the other side.


Satoshi waits with a cat's patience as she murmurs to herself, watching the rat's every movement with a calculating air. With this scrutinizing gaze it's no surprise the feline isn't caught unawares by the sudden volley of mystery spheres, and quiet words swiftly become louder, the workings of a counterspell in the form of sludgy riverwater splashing upwards in a thin wave frozen between cat and rat. The wall serves well to absorb the brunt of the exploding items before its hasty construct collapses under force and acid, leaving Satoshi to endure the rest of the mess as it splatters over the front of her coat. Hissing her indignation and pain as fabric and skin suffer the acidic burns, the magus shuffles backwards with hands moving in rapid gestures. The substance coating her responds to the spellweaving, pulling away from the feline with a parting bite and freezing into a series of icy green shards once airborne. A sharp thrust of her hand signals them into lancing forward as if loosed by bowstring, aiming for Splag in a frosty return of his strike. And that's hardly the end of Satoshi's spell, for as the acidic 'arrows' pass over the river, a wave rears up behind them and dutifully follows, crackling with the sound of waters freezing over as they prepare to wash over the sewer mage and create a rodent-ice-sculpture.


Splag watches the mage deal with his slime missiles, grinning ferally as she is splattered by some of them. The grin disappears as the frozen missiles zip back in his direction though. The filthy white-furred fermin drops to the muddy ground and rolls sideways, behind the pile of bones he had taken his stance next to before, and covers his head as the icy slime shards impact. There is a series of loud zings and snaps as the shards plow into the pile, snapping bones and sending pieces flying into the air. When the attack stops, Splag plants his forepaws and starts to lift himself up on them, blood staining bits of his arms and body, when he sees the wave of frozen water come crashing down upon him. With his small stature, he is completely hidden behind the wave from Satoshi's point of view, denying her the look of surprise and terror on his oddly painted face as he is smothered under the icy waves. His small body is pounded and rolled up the slope, where it is finally deposited, dripping wet and freezing cold. Splag lifts his lips in a silent snart as he scrambles back onto all fours, truly a pathetic sight with his fur plastered to his body in places and sticking straight out in others. There is a disturbing red glint in his eyes as they focus on the mounds of garbage down by the river. She would use the water against him, he would use the water against her. Focusing his pain, anger and humiliation into a single summoning, he sent his will down to the river, seeking the spirit that lived there. As soiled as the river was, the natural spirit of the place was weak, and unable to resist as he bound it to the garbage and effluvium around it, raising it as a toxic spirit. As he did, he commanded it forward against his foe. The edge of the river beganto rise, bringing the piles of trash with it, forming into a roughly ratnam shaped form, with nails and boards, and slime all over it's watery surface. Slowly, it began to shamble up the slope at the feline mage that stood there...


Satoshi watches the shambling trash heap curiously as she hurriedly sings up a spell. A sudden lunge and swing from the offel golem's arm is enough to cuff the mage upside her head, a painful blow for not calculating a reach extended by a rotting plank that sends her sprawling into the mud. At least her casting hasn't been fully lost to the unexpected blow, its intentions pulled off before Satoshi is stunned, and its intentions coming to her aid before the trash pile can deliver another strike. With a roar a squid conjured of ice erupts from the river's surface, beady eyes locked on Satoshi's assaulter. Tentacles, half-frozen and black with the river they're constructed off, lash out for the golem, coiling around its middle and lifting it clear of the mudcaked feline, and in a single fluid motion it hurls the garbage monstrosity toward Splag in a repeat return of his attacks. It's all the distraction she needs, and with a snarl, the bloodied cryomancer stumbles to her feet, hissing out to the waters clinging to Splag's fur, willing them to freeze solid and lock him to the damp ground, to keep him from evading the squid's suddenly descending tentacles following his sailing golem.


Splag is shivering from the cold, his fear, and the exertions of raising that powerful of a toxic spirit, well more than he usually attempted. As such, he has little strength left to resist when his water-logged fur began to freeze solid, practically immobilizing him where he stood. Fortunately for him, the toxic spirit was still strong with the energy and will he had originally imbued it with. Fluidly changing its shape as the black ice tentacles were hurling it back across the river, it extended two of it's limbs back to the surface of the river, the main mass of it's body following, flowing downward like mucus down a window. Bits and pieces of it and the icy tentacle are left behind to be thrown at the fermin, slamming his frozen body against the side of the chasm and then into the mud, but the main body of the toxic river spirit returns to it's original target - the other mage. Absorbing more of the river and garbage into itself, it grows larger and larger, until it is more that double the size it originally was. The amorphous beast turns to face Satoshi, a look of mindless rage on it's rough rattish face and raises it's left limb. A blast of slime, ooze and other biological byproducts of the city blast towards her as if from a hose. This hosing down is followed by an attack from the right limb, as it begins to grab and hurl larger objects and debris at her - boards, small furniture, ice-rosted rocks, anything within reach or encased in its body. Temporarily left alone on his side of the river, the small form of the fermin mage lies gasping on the ground. Slowly, he manages to push himself back onto his feet, barely able to hold himself up on all fours, and weakly raises his gaze to watch his foe and whatever she is next able to throw in his direction.


Satoshi snarls in frustration at her semi-successful manuever, the sound redoubling with the reappearance of the golem. The feline is given time only to bring her arms up in reflexive defense before her body's slammed by the concussive force of the foul torrent, throwing her small frame back and into the stone of the bridge's braces. With a groan of pain, Satoshi drops to the ground, weakly keeping an arm up in futile attempt to fend off the next barrage of refuse as best she can. Her own summoned beast rushes to her aid then, slamming heavy tentacles down between magus and garbageman, taking the hits of furniture and debris as they chisels away at its icy body, and providing Satoshi time to force herself back onto unsteady feet. The amber flecks in her eyes blaze with angry as lips curl back in a ferocious snarl that Splag has the fortune of being out of view for. With the last of her waning strength Satoshi growls out a spell between clenched fangs as hands reach out in front of her. The sound of ice forming is the only prelude the fermin will get before Satoshi forces a wide circle of the watery earth he stands upon to solidify in a flashfreeze, the frost still cling to his fur obedient to bind with the new ice. With a feral cry, the magus thrusts her hands upward in a violent motion that is mimicked by the thick ice beneath Splag's paws. With unnatural speed, the sheet of frost rises upward to shatter itself upon the underside of the bridge, and with the intentions of smashing the fermin between. Or at least cascading down a hail storm of the broken shards, large enough to double as guillotines.


Splag whimpers quietly in his throat as the ground beneath him freezes, and is only barely able to yank away two of his paws before they become frozen to the icy surface forming underneath him. When the slab of frozen mud suddenly launches skyward, his small body is forced down flat against it. Displaying the agility of the smaller beasts, he twists his head and upper body around to look up, trying to see what danger he is headed for now. His beady eyes open wide as he sees the underside of the stone bridge rapidly approaching, and a high-pitched shriek can be heard rising rapidly into the air with him. Calling desperately upon his last ounces of energy, both forepaws weave through the air above him calling into existence a protective buffer of an oozy semi-solid liquid, almost gelatinous in form. Rapidly summoning as much of this as was possible in the few seconds left to him, Splag layers himself in it as deeply as possible. As Satoshi watches, the ice platform smashes into the underside of the bridge, not with a crash, but with a squelch, hanging momentarily before pulling away and falling back to ground. Left hanging from the bridge, embedded in goo, is the small body of the ratman. All is motionless for a brief moment as it hangs there, before it begins to sag slowly down, succumbing to the pull of gravity. When the last strand of goo holding him up fails, the unconscious body of Splag tumbles limply to the ground. Mimicing its master's fate, as the fermin falls, so too does the toxic spirit, sagging back into the river with a wavering moan. When all is still again, the unconscious body of Splag is hidden amongst a pile of garbage and muck, almost as if it were the last protective act of his spirit.


Rheven's Mage Tournament (2010)