Fight:Chisel v Odhranos

Summary: Odhranos swore to accompany Chisel through her feral transformation. However, in her nocturnal form, the enraged dryad turns out to be too strong for the mage and quickly becomes a fight for Odhranos' life.

(ooc: This fight was done in the format of a duel to function as a practice/introduction duel. As it was my first attempt at a duel, I ask you to judge me kindly if reading this in context of a duel. Thank you! -Odhranos (talk))

Odhranos steps back and his grey-garbed shoulder brushes against the rough bark of the ancient tree. He holds his shield tightly to his side, his sweaty hands gripping the smooth leather straps firmly. The mage holds his crystalline staff out like a sword, its end about a meter-and-a-half out from his body. Focusing his mind, the mage breathes in, trying to slow his racing heart as he trains his eyes through the gloom of the darkened forest. Sensing more with magic and hearing than sight, he concentrates on the end of his staff and the enraged dryad out beyond it and a swirling, grey-white ball of flame winks into rasping existence. Narrowing his eyes, the mage exerts his will upon the flames and they increase in temperature, extending out from head of the staff. The mage thrusts the staff forward with a grunt of exertion and the flame-lance extends, a thin line of roaring white fire that extends from the staff towards the dryad.

-

Chisel :: An unlucky prey. Odhranos has promised to take care of her whenever she transform into this.. The sky was dark and the forest itself could not reason with her. Naturally the forest will try to calm her down, just like how it kept her 'sane' all this time whenever she is in her normal state, but when darkness falls, the forest's words always falls into deaf ears as she wanders about. The man tried to contain her but as a forest spirit, the trees has to abide her will and clearly she willed to escape the man's trap, allowing her to roam free. An unlucky prey, A mere mortal lying wounded upon the ground as the dryad looms onto it. It was a human, maybe a resident of the nearby town, out hunting late at night. Only to be attacked by an ax wielding marionette. Her screams echoes upon the forest as she raised her weapon, about to swing to the man when suddenly she was yanked away. Vines that was keeping her afloat suddenly pulled her back, away from the fire lance' trajectory, It wasn't fast enough but good enough to save her life. The fire lance landed onto her shoulder, severing some of the vines causing her to lose balance and slammed against a tree due to the altered trajectory of the vine reeling. Dragging her across the dirt as the lance grazed her, enough to sear her wound and weaken her arm. The interior of her arm has vines that reels in the fingers, allowing her control of the limb, with the fire damaging her shoulder, her control of the arm has weakened as well. Screaming on the top of her lungs as she move to stand up and slowly walk around, Craning her head into unnatural angles till she find the mage hiding in the corner, Taking slow steps at first toward him before a nearby tree connects its vine with her and pulled her closer, easily closing the gap. She stared at him with bloodshot red eyes with her mouth, filled with blood as it hanged open. While her arm is raised high, about to swing diagonally. From his left shoulder then downward to the left. She was moving around the tree, hoping to pin him and disable his movements as her vines are being dragged along her form, going to use it to snare her new prey.

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Odhranos grimaces as the wooden hand connects with his shoulder, the sharpened claws of the marionette slicing his sleeve and skin as it arcs down, but the reinforcing steel rim of his stone shield prevents the blade-like talons of wood to continue on their damaging path. Odhranos does his best to keep his shield-arm up but the cuts are deep and it is an effort to lift the abnormally heavy granite shield. Exerting a little of his newly developing power over stone, he focuses on the shield and wills it to move, giving his dead arm a slight reprieve, but only for a moment as the mage loses control of this power, having only begun learning it and the shield jerks outwards, almost twisting the damaged arm out of its socket. Conveniently, the shield's trajectory takes it flying directly upwards towards the now-close dryad's head, with enough force to break bones.

-

Chisel's hand screeches across the man's armour, clothes and skin but was stopped mid-way due to the shield. With her free and, she draws out her axe and raised it high. Menacing stare as she glared upon the mage before her. So few has ever survived going head to head against the dryad and even fewer ever escaped unscathed. With her arm raised high, vines within her body recoils causing the arm to forcefully jerk forward dragging along her axe. The man is pinned and being at least a foot higher than him due to the vines holding her in place, she has a clear shot on his head. Grinning as the arm swings forward, its dull blade about to connect with his cranium when the shield suddenly struck forward. It would have been enough to end a mortal's life, But having no bones or nearly any fragile flesh, her head was struck squarely into the jaw, causing her neck to snap and even rotate out of angle, the force even dragged her body along, so instead of axing his head, the blade misses and is now aligned with the man's shoulder. With her main body disconnected with her head, the marionette flails away from the man, her hand however is was locked in place, gripping the axe handle tightly and if its blade made contact with the man's flesh, the force will be enough to tear her arm off having damaged earlier with his fire lance. Nonetheless, the Dryad will eventually fall onto the ground as the flora around her tries to heal the severed main vine on the base of her neck, an easy task that would barely take her at least a minute or two.

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Odhranos || The axe whistles down and with a sparking clash is met by the haft of a crystal staff. The closeness of the dryad to Odhranos had caused him to hold the staff close to his body, lest it be wrenched from his grip and he be rendered weaponless. However, the jarring vibrations from the axe's force judder through the staff and the flames at its top wink out. The mage curses, the rod's crystalline structure helped focus his magic, but the force of the dryad's blow had knocked it out of kilter, meaning it would be useless until the mage got time to take a proper look at it. Time which he was desperately short of. Taking his moment's reprieve that his shield had bought him, Odhranos got to grips with the situation. He studied the dryads jerking form, as the vines twisted and curled around her upper torso as it reattaches her head. The mage could try using his fire lance again, but he doesn’t want to kill Chisel, just prevent her from killing him until sunrise. He had sworn to protect her after all. The mage drops the useless staff and kneels, splaying his armoured hands out on the ground, the torn grass staining his gloves. He focuses on the ground, and his mind extends, finding the particles of stone in the ground. He grits his teeth, pouring everything into his focus, his fear letting him push further than his experience in terramancy would normally allow and he commands the stones in the soil to clump and meld together forming stone bars, restrains to hold the enraged dryad down. With a cry, he forces the stone bars to erupt out of the soil, with the intent of wrapping them around the dryad's momentarily occupied form, like giant stone manacles, pinning her to the ground.

-

Chisel neck reconnects quickly. As her main 'organ' is actually her head but most people do prefer attacking the body most due to its larger surface, allowing more attacks. But now the man has completely snapped her neck, she was still alive. The grass underneath her head seeps into the caps on her neck and reconnect the vines. It would be a temporary cure but it will allow her to use her body nonetheless. Soon enough the vines from nearby trees linked onto her body once again, as if they were merely waiting for head to reconnect to it. Her jaw is misaligned but her weapon is still at hand. She tried to stand up but stone was already forming from the ground. In panic, the trees nearby reeled her out of the way, causing her weapon to get snagged onto the bars and causing her arm to tear off its socket. A howling roar of pain and anger as she raised her last arm for a final attack. Vines started shooting out around the man, but not to bind her, it was all going toward to Chisel, with a single stroke of finger, all the vines pulled her with a tremendous force, The number of vines present easily blocks the man's path from either left or right and now Chisel is charging toward him like a bullet with her eyes wide open as if already planning to tearing off the flesh of her prey with her every own teeth.

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Odhranos || His energy spent from the effort of raising the stones with such little experience, the mage has no magic options left in his repertoire. Twisting his broken arm with his other, the mage positions his shield in front of him and braces for the impact. With a colossal crash, the dryad collides with the shield. Somewhat conveniently, Odhranos is flung backwards from the impact, taking him out of the dryad's arm span, but a second later, the airborne mage crashes spine-first into a thick unyielding tree. Although the mage's spine is not broken, the sheer force of the collision puts him well out of action, no energy left to even lift his hand.

-

Chisel snapped her neck... again. Clearly decision making is not something her insane form is known for. Her neck was recently repaired and the flora was only able to temporarily cure it but the dryad was able to damage it again mere seconds after it was repaired. As soon as she collided with the man, her head landed roughly against the man's shield, causing her misaligned face to slide across the surface and causing her neck to snap. When she completely stuck the man, she was already unconscious.. again. As her head was one again removed from her body, she lost control of the vines pulling her, some of them snapped right away, until finally one side gave up, causing her to body to sling shot around a tree and land a few feet inside the dark forest... probably down into a ditch somewhere.