Duel:Scandal v Karasu, Round 1, 2019 Hero of Freedom Championship
Duel: Traditional 3 rounds with final defense, 15 minute posting limit.
Stakes: Auto-hit to the winner.
Judges: Brennia, Zahrani, and Talyara
Larket Botanical Gardens
The Gardens at the Enchanted Forest offer a delightful place to spend time and learn botany and herbology. The gardens contain everything from trees to shrubs, annuals and perennials and everything else you can imagine. And while variety is the consistent theme, the one thing you can always count on is that there is always something blooming at the Botanical Gardens of Larket. More than 9,000 different plant lives in the collections, some of the main collections include hydrangea, beech, redbud, Lenten rose, viburnum, magnolia and dogwood, just to name a few. Each plant is labeled with its name and common uses. Different plants are grouped into gardens and greenhouses, such as the Botanical gardens (exotic plants from jungles), the Kitchen Garden (common fruits, vegetables and cooking herbs), the Cultural garden (local Larketian flora), the Winter Garden (cold weather plants), and so on. Walking trails are well marked for leisure and education hikes on the grounds, of varying lengths and with frequent benches to accommodate guests of all ages and fitness levels.
Environmental Challenge
The Larket Academy of Magick has been charged with magically setting the battle arena for all the duels across Larket. Headmaster Percival is the officiant of the duels. Today’s duel takes place in the Larket Botanical Gardens, in the jungle greenhouse. The walls of the greenhouse have been magically reinforced to withstand the duel inside. The rarest plants have been removed from the greenhouse for their protection. More giant ferns have been added so that it is easy to hide and stealth in the jungle environment. The mages also added a twist: six potted, sentient, carnivorous plants with heads big enough to take a bite off of an arm, and teeth sharp enough to shred thick armor in seconds. Each potted plant can scoot along the ground of its own volition. They weigh as much as a toddler, and thus can be picked up by most humanoids, though watch out, they’ll bite any flesh in their 5 foot radius. If you’re not careful you’ll lose a nose! They roam the greenhouse by stealthily stalking through the jungle foliage, expertly camouflaged. They are hungry and eager to take a bite out of unsuspecting duelists.
Optional Introduction
N/A
Duel
Karasu is the very face of confidence. Others would call that face the face of ‘arrogance’, but those people were not the ones standing in the arena right now. The spell blade steps into the moonlight, her steel short-swords drawn. To the untrained eye, her plate armor is rather unconventional: breastplate without the placard, vanguards without the gauntlets, and a fauld with tassets with a modifier to let her unarmored tail slip through. To the spectators, the most alarming thing may be her complete lack of a helmet. In its stead is a circlet that sits underneath her first set of ears that dip down to protect her temples, then follow the curve of her brow bone. The armor allows for her quick movement, a blessing, given the foliage in the arena. “A red dragon, eh… So much for my usual lineup.” With a practiced breath, Karasu taps the blunt sides of the swords together. The effect of this is barely noticeable at first, until a droplet of water falls from the blade, then another. “Vel Suffocent.” She raises her left sword, and the nearby ponds of water rise to her command, rushing directly towards Scandal. A homing spell, designed to encase his head. There is a delay between the water’s movement and his own, but the water, when present, obscures his sight and hearing. “Just to even out the playing field.” She winks. The arrogance is cut short by the growl of one of the hungry plants nearby, and the extremely composed spell blade gives a hiss to it before ducking into the foliage.
Scandal ’s brows rise and fall as his eyes, roll clearly he signed himself on again without signing the specfics, the black and red dragon, 60’ long and 20’ tall minus wings, this time, as he didn’t presume he’d have enough space to fly in, settles for the quick movement into the brush, and of course straight into the immersion of water, immediately face submerged and briefly blinded by the sudden take of water, the dragon drags his face upon the ground in attempt to disappait water from around his head he then whips his tail from around and in the corner of his eye, as the water encased some his head still he make a hockey like whack to the potted carnivflora in attempts to knock towards the feline.
Karasu runs through the underbrush to avoid the hideous things as they fly towards her. The shaking of the ferns might be enough to give away her location, but the wind generated but the gargantuan tail of the dragon could likely be enough to keep her concealed. Her body contorts as she waves the swords in a ritualistic manner. “Ventus.” A window in the greenhouse’s paneling quivers before shattering, sending sharp shards towards the dragon and away from her. “Ventus.” Another gale flows through the ground, pushing the carnivorous beings back towards him. To the onlookers, this might look like a very unusual game of pool. Her tactics were not exactly the most noble, per se, but she would have to have damselflies in her brain before she actually tried to face off against a dragon! Besides, the plants could do the work for her. Just as she’s thinking this with an obnoxious smirk plastered on her face, the one plant not sent flying catches sight of her tail swishing and makes a lunge for it. The rushing air is enough to make her yowl and jump out into the open. “Oh, my tail, my tail!” She whines, examining the fresh bald patch. “Oh no.” She looks back up at her opponent and readies a stance.
Scandal ’s growl echo’d through the arena, as the glass panes began to fall, and the carniflora he knocked toward was sent, back at him, he would have grumbled about his disdain for magic, but he chose to let the instincts this one time kick in. He launched himself forward towards, the carniflora his mouth opening wide and blast of incendairy acid belching forth, rocketing away from the falling bits of glass with right claw he through away what remained to the acidicly burning plants tried desperatly bite the scales of his arms, he land on all fours roll to his left and then charge towards the feline, his eyes glowing like a pair of blast furnaces. His mouth opening with little water trying to still work its way into him.
Karasu raises both her swords and separates them, creating a shield that deflects most of the acid. Not all. A muttered obscenity escapes her as she says a quick goodbye to her sizzling swords and flings them at the dragon. In retrospect, she might as well have thrown a biscuit. This does nothing to stop the charge, and the spell-blade barely manages to escape being caught up in her own water-bubble handicap, though the massive leg does send her right into the pots where the carnivorous plants, may they rest in peace, were once planted. The acid is effective in withering away what plant cover she had, much to her dismay. “C-Congela--” Her spell is cut short as she has to climb her opponent’s leg to avoid being trampled. “C-Con-- I hate this spell!” She screams in frustration. From the inside of her boots, a dagger is produced. “Congelationis!!” The blade of the tiny sword glows white before she stabs it blindly between two of his scales. Should it hit, the frost spell should take effect quickly, encasing the entire leg in ice and rendering it immobile.
Scandal ’s sights were set on the feline, more instinct than anything else with reason currently flowing in his mind, but scandal’s will was strong, and he focused to push his intellect through, as the feline attempted to climb up the dragons leg, he attempted to shake her away, realizing he might not be able to pull away as he heard her lips attempting to say a aspell, he decided he would forfiet a couple of scales, he would reach his mouth forward and attempt to rip the feline from his leg even at the cost of couple scales, if he succeeded he might dislodge her, but her spell complete her blade in a blind throw, would have struck him in his tongue, causing extreme numbness and of course, stupid speech. “Muh tung, oo froze muh tung.” He would toss move toward her slower now, his breathing a little odd namely for some water in his lungs. “Noth, cuul”
Karasu only manages to scratch the surface of the tongue, though the effect works well enough. She tries to contort her body the way cats usually do, but she can't dodge all the teeth, especially not when her arm, still extended from trying to throw the dagger, is scraped along the sharp edge of a tooth. The pain is jarring and Karasu falls backwards. With her good arm, she twists to grab the dagger's twin from the other boot, though the greave covering her boots are now so dented that she can no longer reach it. Her slitted eyes scan the arena for anything she can use. The gleam of the torn scales catches her attention, and she holds one in front of her with her scratched arm, the other behind her like a makeshift pillow. His advance could not be dodged, but she could at least soften the blow.
Winner: Scandal
Auto-hit Stake
Scandal struck forward still trying to focus with his cold tongue against the flesh of his mouth, deciding to try to shake the scales out of the felines hands he leapt into the air, using the weight of his body cause the ground to shake, and when it did and if did make his scales slip from her grasp, he would reach forward with his hand as fast as he could swing it, and intent to slap her across the room. Of course he would be momentarily distracted after noticing a few bite marks taken out of his tail and glance towards the remaining potted plant. A second distraction would be noted by feeling the ground beneath his feet as he arose on his hind quarters of something metal on the floor beneath him. “Wuth in thu woold?”
Scandal snatched up the quivering carnivorous plant, and then with smile of satisfaction on his face tossed towards the feline, only to miss and cause a statue placed oddly in the garden to topple, the last thing scandal recalled was the ground beneath his feet the so called metal proving to be a giantic and oddly placed spoon which catupulted the wingless dragon through the glass ceiling and into the sky. "Wuuth wiiith Lukart and iant spoons..."