Fight:Isen v Satoshi, a Practice Match

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Frozen War Field

Isen hovers a few feet above the ice, his black-robed shape kept in the air by the malevolent magic that animates the lifeless corpse, turning it into a simple carrier for the lich's soul. Underneath the dark cowl, the face of what once was a dryad peers out through golden eyes, homing in on Satoshi as she approaches over the frigid landscape. The lich's hands shoot out in front and slightly to either side, baring long, pale fingers that seem impervious to the cold. Ther fingers begin to dance, moving like those of a puppeteer while the necromancer's mouth opens, his harsh, grating voice pouring forth an ugly torrent, chanting the runes that power his dark craft. From the ice below him, a cracking can be heard, as something long dead stirs to a grotesque semblence of life once more. It pushes up, revealing itself to be a warrior of considerable size, its jaw hanging slack, its flesh, mostly preserved, colored a deep blue-black. It carries no weapon but its hands, which reach out for Satoshi's face, seeking throat, mouth, or eyes so that it can squeeze, tear and pry the flesh away. However, even as the hand moves, Isen's fingers twitch again, and with a jerk the corpse's hand splits, the bones tearing through the icy flesh to whip around to the side, hoping to catch Satoshi unawares so that, while the empty sleeve of skin and muscle drops to hang from the bones of the wrist, the sharp finger bones can slam in through the side of the snow queen's neck, tearing through the organs there to silence any spells she might cast.


Satoshi's approach comes to an immediate end when the lich begins its casting, the desire to close the gap between undead lost with that macabre vocalisation. Tremors in the ice beneath frosted boots alert the Lady of Frostmaw to the arrival of a long-dead subject, sparse seconds before the hulking corpse bursts from the snows, cutting off the chance for Satoshi to utter more than a single arcane-laced note. As long-dead fingers seize her face, the kit bares her fangs in a snarl of disgust, the expression freezing in place an instant later when her short-lived spell triggers the frigid magics in her body, solidifying flesh and muscle into a solid glacial plate. The corpse's fingers will find no hold upon skin flashfrozen, and even the cuts its fingernails inflicted upon Satoshi's cheeks cease to spill blood in that moment. It's like this the foxkin remains, impassive to the corpse scrabbling at her in vain, and unflinching when that swiping strike is aimed for her now solidified neck. For instead of her throat being torn open, the magus is sent crashing sideways from the force, tumbling through the snow and away from Isen's puppet. Humming comes from Satoshi then, a command to dispell her locked state and allow her to climb back to her feet, even as the melody begins to rise in volume. Magic weaves into the air surrounding the animated corpse then, building with every passing second, manipulating the wind-borne ice as well as the frost within its own skin in a reversal of her prior trick until it's been entirely armored in jagged, spiked plates. With an arcane effort of will, Satoshi sings out her next command, ordering the ice-encased corpse to rise into the air before it's hurled at Isen's hovering form like a spike-riddled cannon ball. Hit or miss, Satoshi follows the strike with shrill whistle, ordering that arctic armor to erupt and send glassy shrapnel in every direction, in hopes of brutally peppering an already battered lich.


Isen continues his chanting, even after the puppet is sent on its way. His words change in tempo, ringing out more clearly, and without the foul tint of evil that accompanied the raising of the corpse. These are runes learned long before he became a lich, and their purpose is soon clear. As the ice forms around his impromptu servant, the lich conjures a shield, a solid wall of magic so that, when the corpse flies toward its master, it rebounds off of the wall, cracking the ice. The shield is dropped quickly, however, as the lich begins his next spell -only to be interrupted by a hail of ice shards, which transfix the black-robed body all through the legs and lower torso. Irritated now by the woman that faces him, the necromancer causes his puppet to rise again and stagger toward Satoshi. As it walks, Isen clenches his fists tightly, pressing the two fists together before him. The pallid lips of the dryad's face twist upward in a horrible sort of grin as he mutters his spell in a malignant tone, his voice rising in tempo as he, with a sudden burst of action, flings his arms out wide, splaying his fingers out. The remains of the warrior's corpse jerk in reaction, the flesh squirming unnaturally until, with a wet, tearing sound, the bones of the corpse shoot out, broken into sharp fragments by the dark magic, and sent at breakneck speed toward Satoshi, hopefully returning the treatment that she offered the lich but a moment before.


Satoshi, like Isen, is in the midst of weaving a follow-up spell, an eye is kept on the approaching corpse, confident she can complete her efforts before it arrives for a second grappling attempt. Unfortunately for the foxkin, Isen has other plans that she did not foresee. All the warning Satoshi is given is that brief squirming of flesh before the dead body erupts, a minuscule window of time to force her arcane workings into effect. Even as the magus sings out a rushed end to her spell and curls to the side in a reflexive attempt to brace herself with left arm lifted over her face, the barrage of shattered bones reach her. A mixed chorus of noise is heard then, cries of pain from the kit as shards bury themselves not only in the flesh of her exposed leg, but reflect off the ice that makes up her right arm, as well as the frost-and-metal bracer worn upon the limb guarding her face. As blood rains down upon the snow, the ground around Satoshi begins to glow, first a blazing blue that quickly darkens with each droplet split by the magus' wounds until an unearthly void of black surrounds her. With a rumble, the blackened snows begin to roil, thick tendrils rising up in a writhing dance around their summoner as they sprout thorns and buds like some many oversized flowering vines. In seconds Satoshi is enveloped in the faux-plantlife, hardly visible through semi-translucent limbs of inky water when she sings out her command. In response, the myriad vines cease their random dancing and suddenly jut outward as one, some seeking to latch upon any available limb of the lich while their kin desire to pummel, rend, and crush the dyradic form beneath their jagged girths. It's once they reach Isen's location that the buds upon Satoshi's false flowers bloom, petals opening to release diamond-dust clouds into the air around the lich. While he may not need to breathe, Satoshi has given the snowdust a desire to seek out the undead's innards, where their microscopic, razor-sharp edges can wreak damage from deep within even as their counterparts strive to maul him from without.


Isen does not even bother trying to throw up a shield, this time. As the vines close in he allows one to take hold of one of his legs and, as soon as it closes, around his dead flesh, he folds his body over around the vine, using not just the body's former flexibility, but also his own magic to press the body flat, held still by the necromancy learned from Diiroehn. This saves him from the rending of the vines, but cannot protect him from the dust, which shivers through the dark robe, slicing away at the flesh beneath until, with a chanted spell to aid in the effort, the lich lets go of his refuge and flies free, crashing into the ice some distance away. Staggering upright -standing now, unwilling or unable to spend the magic it would cost to hover- he turns back to his enemy, giving a brief, almost dismissive waggle of his fingers to call on the slivers of bone that made it into the foxkin's body, to send the wriggling further in until the reach something vital, and then to tear back out, should they make it without being stopped. This, though, is hardly the lich's true attack, but merely meant to distract the woman, to turn her attention and her magic toward removing each and every slpinter, while Isen's magic turns onto Satoshi's own flesh, half-dead and cold from the vampirism that stole the warmth from her veins. His hoarse voice is nearly screaming now, hands gesturing violently as he weaves the threads of his awful magic, meaning to constrict the flesh around her throat, to silence her magical song, while forcing her hands up against her will to drive her own fingers through her eyes, and into her brain, a move that could hardly work on someone whose attention is on such an assault, but should Satoshi be too distracted with the slivers of bone, then the malicious spell might well accomplish its goal.


Satoshi involuntarily shudders as the pain in her right leg increases tenfold, the sudden movements of the shards embedded there drawing her attention away as Isen intended. What the lich might not have taken into consideration is Satoshi's blood, laced heavily with the magics of her elemental lineage and thus at her beck and call more readily than even the obedient snow she stands upon. The instant the bone shards begin to dig deeper, the kit reacts, pure instinct driving the magic that ripples through her, freezing the blood and torn flesh around the splinters before pulsing outwards, expelling the foreign objects in a crimson burst. It's around this time that a shaken Satoshi notices the constriction of her throat and while she's outgrown the instinct of the living to panic at such a sensation, it is still an alarming discovery that tells her just what the lich is capable of. Her left arm twitches then, the only one of the two limbs still made of flesh, and the magus balks in realization, momentarily numb as she watches it rises of its own accord toward her. Again, the ice-laden blood of the genasi comes to her aid, to converge upon that traitorous limb, freeze it solid, and prevent it from committing its assault. Panting with effort, pain, and weariness, Satoshi peers through the nest of serpentine tendrils toward Isen to bare her fangs in a grimace. While her voice may be stilled by his efforts, the magus is not without an alternative, as becomes evident when the frost-borne katana at her waist begins to trill in a high, melodious keen. Ko'tar is Satoshi's insurance against such methods, having been silenced before, and the blade is all too eager to be the voice of its master in that moment. Under the weapon's song the frigid vines are put to use once more, half of them directed to melt in a flood of water sent the lich's way with every intention of washing over him and freezing him to Frostmaw's grounds. While the rest of the brood are given a more violent instruction, to rear up and form a solid wall of spiked ice before they come crashing down upon the hopefully pinned being.


Isen watches as the vines begin to melt and, chanting another spell, rises into the air once more, lifting his body up and over the tide as it flows in and freezes. His spell ends, and he collapses to the new ice, only to see the remaining ice reform and come hurtling down at him. Unable to move quickly enough, he beckons at the fleshy remains of his undead minion, jerking the boneless mess toward him with blinding speed. The wall of ice crashes down and breaks apart, revealing the huddled body of the lich, its limbs bent at odd angles, but mostly whole all the same, due to the flesh that hovers above most of him, impaled with spikes of ice and slowly disintegrating as the magic used to hold it as a flesh shield drains away.