Grande Tourney of Kaionar :: Non-Dragons

Rhys hadn’t expected his attack to hit, but somehow it still caught him by surprise when he missed. He stumbled a little, but managed to keep more of his balance since the attack had been aimed lower; another over arm swing would have taken him off his feet completely. He straightened up and looked around, still blinking to try to clear his vision. He couldn’t /see/ Static anywhere, which meant she had to have gone either to his right (as it was his right eye that the novelty patch covered) or behind him. He decided to presume somewhere in the middle, and took a large step in the opposite direction – forwards and left. As he did, however, he felt a breeze behind his right arm, and a second line of fire opened up just above is right elbow. It wasn’t a deep cut – he had stepped away just in time to save his arm’s function, but it didn’t need to be. His arms were thin and scarred enough already, and the tendons supporting his forearm were barely a half-inch below his skin. He gave a roar and whirled around, the heavy ball at the end of his flail making a wide arc around him in the direction of the attack, but he found his arm sagging even as he turned. What was meant to be an attack at chest-height would have ended up at about knee height, but his fingers managed to stay locked around the handle of his weapon. That mean the tendons hadn’t been cut, thank goodness, so he could persevere with that arm for a while longer before being forced to use his weaker, barely controllable left hand instead. That made him grin again, his expression matching the little yellow version over his eye.

--

Jackdaww had barely finished thinking to himself that he would have to clean his blade after the battle when the heavy blow hit the back of his knee. Years of training had taught him to keep his knees soft at all times, so his leg bent easily with the blow, sending him over backwards but protecting his joints from lasting damage. He spun his other leg in a wide arc, turning the ungraceful fall into what could have been a devastating kick, and leaned to make his shoulder touch the icy ground first. Once the shoulder touched down he rolled – or at least he started to. There was a sickening crunch as the ice gave way, turning his roll into a spiralling skid across the ground. The ice-hole he had fallen across wasn’t large enough to get stuck it – just enough to put his balance off. However, he had a clear view of Silence’s ankles, and directed a wide slash towards them as he struggled to get a grip on the ice to stop himself spinning. If he was lucky at least one of the semi-accidental attacks would have hit, letting him keep his advantage.

While she took a bruise-worthy kick to the side of her face, she could just barely see the glint of the blade as it came at her ankles. Noticing that he was on the ground, she rolled with the direction her head was facing in order to avoid possibly getting her feet cut off. Of course once on the ground she was a sitting target so she tried to move across the ice to get out of the way.

After a few minutes of slipping and sliding around trying to get her bearings, she noticed that Jackdaww was having much the same issue. 'Perhaps he is not so skilled after all if I tripped him up so easily.' she thought to herself as she steadied herself low to the ground. She moved to stand and remembered her match just in time for the ice around her to start cracking. In a moment of panic she moved back just out of reach of Jack's blade, once again putting her fireball idea out of her head. 'Gotta watch for weak points in the ice as well as an over-sized hairpin slicing at my ankles. This just keeps getting better.'

Finally after finding a solid place to stand she lit up her match and like a miniature flame-thrower she blew a horizontal column of fire at her uncoordinated opponent. Doubtful she'd do any damage but it did put an interesting spin to the tide of the battle.

Static stepped aside as fast as she could following her attack, almost tripping over her cloak in her haste. Ooh, he was definitely angry now, if he hadn’t been before, his yell putting her even more on her guard than she had been before. It would make his attacks wilder, make him less easy to predict. His use of a flail was hard enough to work out already too…

She wasn’t expecting his attack either so fast, or so low- she had taken on a defensive stance, angling her body away from him in case she had to leap away again, or move out of the way of a body-height attack. She managed to just about get up a defensive shield of electricity in time, stopping his flail from smashing her kneecap into pieces, but that didn’t stop the force of it knocking it sideways off her feet. She slid across the ice, hands instantly freezing with the cold of the ground, her grip locking in place around her sword even tighter. She scrambled up to her feet again, grimacing as she put her weight on the knee Rhys had just attacked. Just because his flail hadn’t hit her knee directly didn’t mean that she hadn’t been hurt from it; it was just lighter, bruises rather than shattered bones. She hissed and frowned, sending off another bolt of electricity in his direction. That would keep him busy for a bit.

==X==

Rissul slowed his attack as he caught Baldasarre underneath his hand, pushing him against the ground with force, but not as much force as he could have used. He didn’t want to crush the little creature, and he was used to shoving around other fireeyes (to a certain extent), rather than humans or… giant weasels. It was a horrible way to die, being slowly crushed, and the last thing he wanted was to kill Baldasarre anyway. Rissul moved closer once he was firmly pinned, spreading out his weight properly on his four legs and pressing a little harder down. He didn’t want to crush him, but that didn’t mean he didn’t not want to beat him either.

What he didn’t expect was the weasel to suddenly bite him, and he growled angrily, retracting his hand slightly, shaking it to get Baldasarre off. The bone he had grabbed onto cracked with a horrible sound, then shattered, turning into dust and broken black fragments. He hissed, wrenching the rest of his hand away from biting-distance and shoving down harder. “Ouch. That hurt.” He would squish the air out of the weasel, until he begged for mercy, or he went through the ice. It wasn’t overly thick.

==X==

Kidas’ attacks from the air were predictable, but they seemed to be working, so she wasn’t going to go changing her pattern. Her foot was really starting to hurt though, and it was suddenly made worse as he got another good swipe in at it, taking off another bit of the end of her wing at the same time. She squealed, flicking blood everywhere as she flapped to keep in the air, then touched down to ice gingerly, putting most of her weight on her still-whole foot. She touched one wing to her other foot, hissing when her feathers came away stained dark with blood.

Despite Talos now being stuck in ice (good riddance), she was reluctant to try and attack him. He was still armed with those sharp, sharp swords, and she didn’t want to lose any more of her feet than she already had. A claw perhaps? Then she remembered the short dagger at her belt and pulled it out, fixing the two claws on the top of her good wing around its hilt with great care before hopping forwards, hanging back and testing the ground under her feet. She didn’t want to fall through the ice too.

As his flail rebounded off Static’s electrical shield, Rhys’ vision cleared a little more – just enough for him to see her go skidding across the ice. He flexed his arm, using the brief pause in the battle to check how well his arm was functioning, and foolishly took his eyes off Static. Seconds later, the bolt of electricity struck him – right over the reinforced patch on his armour. The leather there was thick, so the electricity itself only barely reached him, giving him no more than a sharp shock, but the force of the blow was something else entirely. As it hit, his side exploded with agony, causing him to give a howl. He had hoped the old scar hidden beneath the many layers of leather and padding wouldn’t be a clear weakness, but it was too late to hide it now. He felt like he was on fire – his entire right side burned as the scar threatened to open up, and that fire slowly merged into his mood. “I’ll kill you for that!” He bellowed, swinging his flail over his head to bring it crashing down onto where he though Static would be. He was wrong – he missed by about a yard, and stumbled, the metal teeth of his weapon stuck in the ice. He pulled frantically, wincing occasionally as the wound at his side tugged painfully, in an attempt to free the weapon to protect himself with.

--

Jackdaww leapt to his feet easily, using his back to push himself off the ice to land on his feet. For most people it would require huge amounts of upper-body strength, but Jackdaww’s light frame worked perfectly to his advantage. However, while he was distracted by trying to right himself, he failed to notice the lit match in Silence’s hand. The fire wrapped around him, scorching skin and burning hair before he managed to leap out of its path. Great, now he’d have a silly haircut for the rest of the tourney!

“I forgot you were a fire breather.” He spat, patting out a spark on his breeches with his left hand – glad that the fire hadn’t seriously injured him. Then, not pausing to see if Silence had any more fire to throw at him, he lunged towards her, aiming for her wrists. She’d have a job tripping him again or blowing more fire if she couldn’t move her hands. However, that left an opening to his right, which even as he moved he knew was careless. He only hoped Silence wasn’t proficient enough with that staff to take advantage of it.

Rhys yelped and lept back as Static’s blade slashed the backs of his hands, flexing his freezing fingers as the line of red spread out. He struggled to his knees, shuffling away from her sword pathetically, before making it to his feet some way away from his weapon. Great, this was about to get a whole lot harder for him, but at least most of his vision had filtered back by now. He could actually /see/ his opponent again, even if there were still a few blind spots across the image. He grinned again, looking down Static’s blade with a grim sort of satisfaction, and dodged quickly sideways, to the inside of Static’s blade. Moving as quickly as he dared on the slippery ground, he aimed a punch for her left cheek, his slashed hand dropping little specks of red onto the white ground as he did so. He had no hope that it would do any damage, even if he managed to hit, but it should cause enough of an annoyance for him to try to retrieve his weapon from the ice. Or get him skewered. Either way, he didn’t particularly mind.

--

Jackdaww cringed as Silence mentioned their last meeting. “I wasn’t that drun- umph!” He said, the ‘umph’ happening as a result of Silence’s wooden pole hitting him across the ribs. A swordsman would have been able to kill him with that move, but the stick just left a bruise, not hitting hard enough to break a rib. He ducked under Silence’s first wild swing, but the second caught him right across the cheekbone, creating a worrying, hollow bang. He staggered backwards, readjusting his grip on his sword, before sinking into a more serious battle stance. He hadn’t wanted to hurt Silence too much – she was as close to a friend as anyone, but she had brought whatever followed on herself.

He aimed a low sweep round under her left elbow, aiming to strike her ribs, staying low to avoid the head-shots she was throwing at him. He could feel a slight trickle of warmth running down one cheek, suggesting that the heavy blow had broken the skin, and he felt quite shaken, but not badly enough to stop him attacking. He was hoping the battle would be over before the headache he was sure was about to start caught up with him.

--

Eliza swore under her breath as she caught sight of Achos. She practically worked for the man (well, if he could truly be called that), so this was going to get awkward. Oh well, she was a sylph, and he should have known when he asked for her help that she couldn’t really be trusted. Too late to pull out now.

She unsheathed the hand-and-a-half sword from her hip, holding it in both hands carefully, and started to move closer, hoping that her all-white attire would hide her until the last moment. She wasn’t headstrong enough to charge right in, but wouldn’t hold back once she got closer. Sylphs were bloodthirsty creatures through and through, and she was no different. She wanted to see someone’s lifeblood spilled by the end of the day, and providing it wasn’t her own she didn’t care whose it was.

Finally deciding she was close enough (and unsure if Achos had seen her or not) she lunged, making a slash towards one of his arms. If she could minimise his ability to attack, her chances would only be better.

((PP’d with permission from Kat to break the ice 8D))

With another hit on her side, Static was starting to really feel the battle shift in her favour, and was settling down into a familiar pattern. This new cut of hers showed Rhys was more battered that she had first thought; there was the eyepatch, telling her he was “smart” enough to get into a pretty dire fight anyway, but another huge gash all along his side too… well, he apparently hadn’t learnt very well from his last fight. And you would have thought major scars like his would have maybe suggested that fighting in a tourney was a poor idea.

She twisted her sword to try and catch him again as he ducked behind her, halfway through a spin to face him again when a loud CRACK suddenly came from the ice. There was a moment of stillness, when she thought the ice might hold, then a huge area suddenly collapsed under both their feet, sending them crashing down into a cavern. It opened out on both sides, to their left quite a long way, the right a shorter way. There was a high ledge they both landed on that ran towards the right side of the cavern, maybe a couple of metres under the surface, then Static fell further into the cavern as she was knocked sideways by a further fall of ice, sending her down to the lower level of the cave, maybe another couple of metres down from the first ledge. She shrieked as one of her legs twisted a strange way as she landed in an ungainly heap on the floor, dropping her sword to clutch her knee, then threw her arms over her face as more ice came down the slope she had just fallen down, burying her almost up to her waist. Who knew what state Rhys was in, but he wasn’t the primary worry for the moment until the ice settled down inside the cavern.

Oh yeah, this is definitely not what Dmitri had signed up for. Well, technically, it was. It just.... wasn't what he was expecting. Now, though, he wasn't sure why he had thought he should sign up at all. Here he was, a kid, under-versed in sword-play, up against WHO KNOWS what kind of great masters.... But then, as they say, in order to get better at a thing, you must learn from those better at you. This was true in Combat, Chess, and most other competitive things. So... here he was.

What he HADN'T been expecting, though, was the blistering cold. Dmitri could stand the damp, sharp chills of winter fairly well, but chills of winter were vastly different than this freezing wasteland. Moreover, standing the cold and fighting it were also on two entirely different levels. And, considering he only had one outfit, he couldn't dress himself warmer for this weather. Before he even stepped into the ring, he knew he was going to lose.

Looking at his opponent didn't heighten his confidence any. Silver was older than him by a few years (but still a younger man, so MAYBE he stood a chance) but he had something in his eyes that Dmitri lacked.

Dmitri, himself, had a very earnest, almost innocent air about him. Aside from the cold, he looked light on his feet and mostly trouble-free. His opponent did not seem so green as he.

Regardless, Dmitri was going to give it his best shot. With Chattering teeth and a concerned expression, Dmitri drew his rapier and gave the stranger in front of him a delicate salute. With that, he settled into a fighting stance, minding his footwork.

With such biting cold though, the stiffness in his legs was pretty much going to make all his well-trained footwork a moot point, though.

Dmitri was not even a little hopeful about this fight.

Static could feel the ice sucking the heat out of her the longer she was half buried in it, and that wasn’t her only worry. It took about thirty seconds for broken ice and snow to harden, and she had already wasted about ten seconds of that. Sparing a glance in Rhys’ direction, she started to shovel at the ice packed up to her middle, wrapping her cloak over her arms to try and keep her hands dry. That way she wouldn’t be accidentally electrocuting herself if she had to use her powers again.

The ice was already hardening, and it took her a good amount of effort to clear half away from her legs, breath turning into a misty fog in front of her eyes. She managed to dig far enough down to pull one leg out of the ice, pausing with the one leg tucked underneath her for a breather before she wrenched the other out of the ice, gasping and moaning as the movement sent a spike of pain down to her ankle and up to her knee. Ooh, something was seriously not right. And now Rhys was up and moving.

She grabbed her sword and shuffled backwards, still on the ground and dragging her injured leg until she reached a wall behind her, using it to push herself up to standing, leaning heavily on her one good leg.
“No,” she said bluntly to his quip, then flicked her free hand out from under her cloak, where she had rubbed her palm dry, loosening a small ball of electricity at the ice above Rhys’ head. With any luck, it might break off the cavern between them, then she could hunt him down through the tunnel network that spread out around them.

==X==

Rissul didn’t like using the underhand way he was beating Baldasarre- squishing him into the next world was not a nice, or honourable way to go- but if that was what it was going to take to beat him, and stop him from biting off more fingers, so be it. It seemed to be working, in any case.

He felt a faint flash of irritation when the ice cracked under the weasel, sending him tumbling backwards into a cavern. That wasn’t supposed to happen! He was sure the ice would have taken a little more weight than a bit of his own and Baldasarre’s combined. Apparently not however. Rissul backed up a little as he waited for the ice to settle down, leaning back until the cracking sounds had stopped, then peered forwards, putting his face close to the hole Baldasarre had fallen down and looking from side to side.
“Are you alive, little one?” he rumbled, glowing eyes showing little emotion. Having the weasel die on him would have felt like he had been a bit cheated of a true victory.

==X==

Kidas kept her distance as Talos managed to pull himself out of the ice, hopping from foot to foot with impatience and anxiety. She didn’t want to get close for him to take another swipe at him, but the longer she left it, the more he would be able to move… it was quite the dilemma, which she decided was best left up to his own decision. If he attacked, then she would attack back. If not, well then… they would keep their distances and see what happened. She gripped her little knife firmly in her claws, angling her wing so she didn’t accidentally cut herself with it. Talos had already managed to wound her twice enough for her not to be hurting herself too.

She squealed in surprise as the avian suddenly charged at her, skittering backwards a few steps. No wait, she was supposed to attack too! She gave a half-hearted swipe in Talos’ direction, stabbing with the little knife with a severe lack of precision- but it saved her a full slash across the wing from his own sword, giving her a gash a little way under where he had aimed; but it still hurt like fire, her muscles tensing up as she ripped her wing away, other wing going to where the pain was and covering it with fluffy feathers. Her wings were taking quite the beating now, bloody feathers all over the ice.

Wings still tucked around her, she gave a banshee-like yell and charged back at Talos, just in some hope that she might take him off guard and manage to shove him to the floor, then have at him with her claws.

Rhys frowned at Static’s blunt comment. “Ah, that’s a shame – my ‘trip’ was much more exciting.” He smirked to himself, before ducking as the green ball shot above his head. It struck the ice behind and above him, making him grin again. “Hey, you missed aga- ah crap.” He cursed under his breath as a wide crack ran through the ice above him, and he dived into the nearest tunnel to avoid being crushed by the small avalanche that followed. It was small – too small to stand in, but it stopped the ice crushing him at least. He shuffled around as the white wall settled behind him, his side of the cavern echoing with the sound of cracking ice, and swore loudly to himself. The ice had blocked off not only his view of Static, but most of the larger tunnels. He was left with only three usable ones – only two of which he could even fit into. If he had his magician’s jacket, he’d have tossed the lucky silver coin he kept in his smallest inside pocket, but he didn’t. Instead, he chanted the ‘ip dip doo’ rhyme he used when he was a child under his breath, and shuffled into the tunnel it gave him. He could only crawl through it, and there was a coating of loose snow on the floor of it, meaning he was loosing heat faster than he was making it down the tunnel. Darn. He only hoped he would meet up with his opponent again soon – the movement involved in fighting her was the only source of warmth he had any access to.

--

“This would be much easier if you’d give up – I really don’t want to hurt you…” Jackdaww said slowly, taking a step back to place himself out of harm’s way for a second. Silence’s shirt was a startling shade of red – he hadn’t really meant to hurt her badly, but he hoped it would teach her a lesson at least. Well, he wasn’t going to wait for a civilised answer from a woman wielding a large stick, so he darted in for another attack. He was clearly toying with Silence – the attack was meant to scratch her skin on the other side of her ribs, but not do any real damage. He couldn’t help it – he was a show-off at heart. However, his training had taught him that his opponent’s anger was possibly one of his strongest tools – if he could get Silence really wound up things would get a whole lot more exciting, and possibly a whole lot easier for Jackdaww.