GTB I. Imported from live Gaia guild archive.
Count Zantara[count_zantara] vs. The Heart of the Dominion [Tacitus]
Match Ends: Next Monday 9 PM Central
The humid climated South America landscape outfitted with a few ancient Maya buildings, run down of course, and the famous large pyramid in the background, which the fights can fight upon, even ascending to the top for a high leveled bout.
Ready?
FIGHT!
Standing atop the decimated form of a massive idol is a slim man at least seven feet in height with incredibly long arms. A black trenchcoat billows out behind him as streams of darkness dance away to oblivion upon the winds. A wide brimmed hat obstructs his eyes, through from the hidden optics a bright blue glow emits with sporadic pulses of the deepest crimson. A thick black fluid drips down the idol from where the creature tightly grips his left hand with his right. Blood runs from a series of slash marks that run parallel to a crudely done patch job where it seems a hand that does not belong was grafted on.
Slowly sliding the dark, thick jungle much like the snake that he was, the cleric stared up at the hidden sky and allowed a sly smile to cross his pale, scaled face behind the mask.
It seemed like a good day for him.
Wearing a dark purple three piece suit which seemed excessively large and heavy for the weather, the Count continued on his way, keeping a sharp eye out. With his left hand on the cutlass that was attached to his left hip and his other hand close to his belt of arcane spell components, he came into a small clearing which lead down a rough path towards one of the main temples. With the river to his left and the jungle to his right, he truely had only one way to go... and that was towards the temple. and with each forward step, the black round shield strapped to his back tapped against his spine, sliding left and right.
((Hopefully I'm not too late.....))
((Nah, ya got a week and a couple days, so says teh Vintrict.))
The black stain perched atop the ruined idol slowly crouches, still clutching his bleeding wrist. Cold dead eyes glanced down to the hand before he raised it to his mouth, his jaw distending as his lips and cheeks slip open. Inserting the hand into his mouth he clamped down and ripped it from his arm, chewing on the decaying biomatter before swallowing. A skeletal structure began to form where his bleeding hand had been, though instead of waiting for it to form his arm convulsed. A spray of black viscous blood would launch from the arm, searing away plants nearby and releasing a thick black smoke with arcs of crimson lightning jagging through it. Anything organic to come in contact with this being's blood would find the same end result, though inorganics would be entirely unaffected. It wasn't specifically aimed at Zantara, but it was a damn handy way -pun entirely intended- to set up a clear battlefield and establish dominance.
Looking up at the sound of muscle and tissue ripping, the Count took one look at his obvious oponent and smirked slightly as in one moment he drew the cutlass with his left hand and took a step back, bringing the cutlass up into a guard position. The Count took one look at the spray of thick black liquid and smoke curled from the creature and did what any person with half a mind would do.
He got out of the way.
Now most would have dove for the jungle perhaps, but as a amphibious member of the serpent family, Zantara took the other route. Namely he took two steps to the left and with a perfect swandive, dove deep into the black murky waters and began to swim upstream, trying to get behind his opponent, ever so often looking up to where the creature was, his own scanners working quite well in the water, giving himself a distorted, blurry view of his opponent, whatever the creature is.
As the acrid smoke expands more plants wither within it, giving birth to a growing cloud of pestilence. The skeletal hand clenches as pulses of crimson dance under the brim of his hat, his body facing the general direction of his opponent. With a twitch his right arm swings back and then slashes through the air in front of him, launching several bone spikes at his foe. An orb of swirling gray energy was born from the blood flowing in rivers around his skeletal fingers.
With the bone spikes sliding into the water haphazardly, the Count was liking his odds as he swam in a almost random pattern, dodging the slow moving spikes as they sank into the water. Grabbing up two in his free hand, the old orochi count grinned wickedly as he came down to the bottom of the slow moving river, placing his feet onto a large black rock which resided there.
It was time to take the fight to the enemy.
Angling his body towards his foe, he tucked his legs under himself and pushed with all his might against the rock, sending him jeting through the water, his arms raised abive his head. With a mighty roar of water, the Count burst forth like the mighty swordfish of yonder year, his body gracefully reaching it's apex of about five feet above the water, in a quick corkscrew of his body, counter clockwise.
Using his own body spin, he threw the three bonespikes that he'd picked up for his own use..yet not at his enemy. No his opponent would probably be able to reaborb the weapons in any case. No, he threw them at the middle of the idol aimming at precise stress points that he'd calculated. WIth the three bone spikes hopefully slamming through the idol, sending it falling towards the jungle, Zantara allowed his right hand to dart down to his sachel and remove a small amount of bat guano.
Quickly he ran through the words of a certain spell and as he fell into the water tossed the guano towards his opponent on the second rotation. As it left his palm, the guano burst into violet magical flames shapped into the image of a 3 foot in diameter humanoid skull and flew unerroringly towards the creature, following the creatures movements. The unnerving cackling of the skull echoed through the forest as it drew closer and closer to The Counts foe of the evening.
Instead of the ruined idol falling to the ground Zantara would be disappointed to find thin streaks of black running down the ruined mass, connecting the defiled bone. Bone of the appearance of obsidian was quickly covering the ruined idol, giving it support using the bone spikes as a base for growth. It was only a matter of whether they were growing from those points, or being directed from above by The Walker. A single hand extended out to greet the flames, a black taint consuming the violet as it drifted through the acrid black smoke filling the air. Instead of doing whatever Zantara expected the skull would reduce in size to be caught in his hand and inspected, wholly tainted with anything granted to it by Zanatara already consumed by the Nightmare Fog. For a moment he studied it and then raised it to his malformed nose, now hidden under the brim of his hat. With a deep inhale he seemed to snort the fireball as if it were any drug of the like, a shudder passing through his body as he finished processing the data gathered from the fireball as it slipped through the smoke.
A surge of power floated through the orb growing in his left hand, flecks of black running through as it was quickly overcome by crimson and azure. The temperature began to skyrocket in the already humid environment, adding to the discomfort. A moment later he seemed to crush the orb in his skeletal hand, reducing it to nothing but ash. This would be cleared up as soon as it reformed in the center of the fog, darting through the darkness to sink into the water upstream of Zantara by a good fifteen feet or so. Instead of fizzling out or exploding in some futile attempt to dam the waters it began to form a black stain. The entire river was quickly turning from delightful dihydrogen monoxide to a deadly sludge only fit to be called this defiled man's blood. More black smoke would boil to the surface, bacteria and fish instantly eaten away by the highly acidic nature of the ooze.
Frowning as he noticed both his attacks failing before he splashed into the deep waters, the Count swam downstream and brought himself to a almost standstill, gathering his mental focus once more.
He had learned many things in those short few moments. His opponent was corrupted to the core...tainted by evil you might even say. He had complete control over his bone spikes. And magical flames were pointless as well as using acid.
Perhaps a change of direction was in order...one that would take his opponent by storm.
Looking up through the murky waters, he could sense the dark "stain growing through the water, killing all it touched. And this one last piece of the puzzle clinched Zantara's next move. If you can't fight fire with fire...you use it's anti-thesis. In this case...the cleansing power of good. A distastful concept to this cleric, but it might just make the fight that much easier.
Running his hands through a complex pattern barily slowed by the water around him, Zantara was suddenly surrounded by a white glow which gave off a intense aura of "good" and "law". Removing a piece of Jade from his pouch, he tossed it into the tainted water and smirked as he began to rise out of the water, allowing the piece of worked Jade to absorb the taint before crumbling to dust.
Quickly he rose out of the water, protected by the Magic Circle against Evil which surrounded him like so much mithral armor. Protected by his faith, the cleric began the motions of a next spell which should end right when his opponent made his next move. Once he was completely out of the water, Zantara would release one of his most potent spells....better known as Clensing of the Soul.
Basically it was a forced attonement onto his opponent, removing a large amount of the darkness that swirled around his oponent soul, returning him to a previous human(oid) state. It wasn't powerful enough to completly clense an individual, exspecialy one this tainted by the darkness. But hopefully once it was cast, the spell would diminish his opponents abilities enough to make the battle moot.
But Zantara was never one to put all of his hopes onto a single action. As his left hand continued to go through the motions of the divine spell, he brought his cutlass up in a guard position in front of his body and slide his left foot back, offering the smallest target to his foe who still had the high ground almost 30 feet away.
((Cleansing of the Soul becomes active in my next post. Magic Circle against Evil active now))
As the tainted waters continued to expand it became apparent that the jade did not entirely counteract the effects of the magic contained in the waters. While it was true that the cleric's attempt had decreased the effect, it could not wholy end the effect, meaning that the waters were probably a bad place to return to. What the beast found amusing was the Magic Circle that had been errected against him, knowing it would do the cleric no good. The bone covering the idol began to rapidly expand across the ground, surges of crimson lightning through the Nightmare Fog heralding its expansion. Within a close proximity to the acrid black smoke the temperature would drop off considerably, and at its very edge spellcasting would become difficult, as if the energy -divine, mana, or whathaveyou- was being drawn away. Though it would be noted that the smoke is merely a visual effect, not even an illusion, simply a visual display of a sort of area of influence.
Not even wasting the seconds to look at the water for he knew that it was no longer a way of retreat, the Count sensed that the magic was being leeched out of the air as he found it even harder to gather the energy he needed. But this was not anything new. There was countless foes who had ways to counter magic at the source but Zantara had always prevailed...in one way or another.
Dipping futher into his reserves of power, the white light which seemed to infuse the orochi suddenly changed to a neutral grey as Zantara added his own internal psionic abilities to the spell and using a lanrge portion of the unneeded energy of the magic circle surrounding him to make up the difference in what he wanted and what he had. He could see the creatures smoke coming closer and closer but he had a very good chance of getting what he wanted out of all this.
Throwing the cutlass into the air, he clasped his hands together in a loud thunderclap that spread out pushing back the smoke for a moment before he brought his pinky, ring and middle fingers into a two handed fist and pointed his index at his foe. With a sly smrk on his face, he said one simple word.
"Bang"
And with that a pure clensing energy swirled around the index fingers of the Count before bursting forth in a 3 foot wide blinding corckscrewing beam of positive energy aimmed for his opponents chest. It was a blinding white and gave off a weak EMP burst as it began to eat through the smoke driving further and further towards the Counts opponents, seeming gathering strength from the taint. As soon as the beam of energy hit his foe (if it did), the energy would dig deeply into the spiritual center of the opponents soul and begin to erradicate the darkness from within.
Catching the cutlass as it came down, Zantara drew a deep breath and began to run right after the beam of cleansing energy, his feet slowing slightly in the taint as he felt it trying to sap his strength. Jumping up, he followed right behind the beam knowing that if it was deflected back to him, he would be all the better for it. Without a sound he drew back his right hand for a over head slash from his opponents left shoulder to right hip. He could feel the taint cutting back into the vacant area behind him drawing close the way out. But this wasn't the end move for either one of them, he knew.
Not by a long shot.
The beast stared down the blast, throwing his arms wide and releasing a powerful roar that sent animals fleeing for miles. The beam struck him square in the chest, the psionic energy used to fuel it burning away the blackness on his skin while the positive energy seared flesh from his bones. With a sickening crack his right arm digs deep into his chest and subsequently tears free a rib that looked to be built of ruby instead of the blackened obsidian of his other bones. Sliding down he holds the freed rib above him as the last remnants of his blood are scoured away. With another roar he screamed at the man, "Do you really think you can end me?! Do you think you know what I am?!" Images danced on the air, faces twisted in pain as the beam's effects tore into their souls. Dripping blood and gore the flesh on his chest and skeletal right hand began to stitch back together as Zantara leaped in for the attack. The blade sunk into his shoulder, lodging in the bones as the left arm ceased movement. His dead eyes stared up at Zantara as a surge of bone growth locked the cutlass in place, "Would you prefer to be eaten raw, rare, well done, or blackened?" Even as he spoke his leg lifted up to slam a boot into the man and kick him away with enough force to shatter bone.
With the sword slicing deply into his opponents flesh, Zantara knew he'd finally hit a nerve. And perhaps this was exactly what was needed. His opponent had been running the show from the begining with his wily ways. But a angry man made more mistakes than one who had full control over his senses.
Not allowing the sword to stop moving, Zantara gave it a small twist and reversal of the blade tip as he fell past, pulling the blade straight out instead of even trying to move it "up" or "down", his left foot touching down on the rim of the idol still with his right hip towards his foe. With a florish that would be the envy of any swalbuckler worth his weigth in salt, The Count used the momentuim of his motion and the tip of his right boot on the bottom rim of the idol as it landed to turn himself clockwise allowing the mule-like kick to slide across his stomach and left hip deflecting most of the power into midair.
And with that simple rotatation on the ball of his left foot, Zantara set himself up for his next lightning fast move.
With his opponents leg fully extended now against his left hip, The Count brought his left arm down and wrapped the offending appendege into the crook of his bisep and forarm. At the same time, he quickly brought his right arm up and jabbed one quick elbows into his foes face from behind, aimming to break his opponents nose and perhaps hit his taller oponent just right to shove bone fragments up into his brain.
The moment the blade leaves the creature's shoulder it begins to stitch itself back together, a small scar leaving the only visible trace of damage. He seemed to watch the elbow sweeping in to break his nose, and gave a brief smile. The smell of rotten flesh flooded outward as his head tilted back and up slightly just before impact, his jaw distending to open quite wide. The beast would get a mouthful of elbow and Zantara would get an armful of teeth, his massively powerful jaws locking down around the limb with all intents of simply eating it while still attached to the man. He didn't care that his leg had been captured, all of his limbs suddenly twisting to latch onto the cleric. His clothing lashed out to support their weight, but they would slip down to land on the ruined idol, right in the center and laying down.
|Catching the head movement of his opponent out of the corner of his eye, Zantara just grinned as he raised his elbow up a quarter of an inch before it struck, smashing into his foes front insicors with a almost metallic clang breaking off shard of calium and giving his foe a more skull-like deminor as it slammed into the roof of his opponents mouth as it bit down barily breaking the skin under Zantara's scales, releasing a small shower of acidic blood deep into the creatures mouth. It was always nice to see someone doing the exspected.
With the broken teeth trying to dig further through the tightly woven body armor and scraping up his hardened scaled skin, the Count winced as he continued the turn which he had begun earlier, placing his right foot down on the idol and with all his might yanked the creature off of the stone idol and throwing him away towards the river as he pulled his injured arm out of the broken maul which he'd placed it in before the offending limbs could aattach themselves around his body. With his green acidic blood dripping from the wounded elbow, he grinned even more as he watched his foe flyaway, the fog clearing even further from around him and with a almost flippiant flick of his cutlass, he removed the clothes of his foe which had fallen to the center of the idol, knowing better than to get near them.
Finishing up his rotation once more facing the river, Zantara did a amost perfect backflip off of the idol and landed twenty feet toward the jungle before taking a step backwards and disappearing within.
As Zantara tried to move the beast he would find several encumbrances to throwing him away as such. The first was the impressive weight of the creature, ranging somewhere between one half and one ton, most of it based in bone density. The second encumbrance came from the strands of darkness and cloth that had intended to support him while he moved into a better position to grapple the cleric, latching onto the stone and providing an anchor. The final encumbrance would be found with the beast's teeth, unharmed by the strike as they seemed to be closer in substance to bone than normal teeth, for thats exactly what they were. With as much as his body got crushed or otherwise seriously damaged, teeth that were easily replaceable and hard to damage were indeed a plus.
With a tight grip on Zantara's elbow, even with his tongue dissolving away, he didn't plan to be going very far. Instead of reaching to wrap around Zantara, each hand whipped up to grab the entrapped arm as the cleric tried to throw him away. If anything, he might slip away some small distance, likely ripping bits of armor and flesh from the limb, but he'd be taking Zantara down with him. If somehow the ecclesiastical man managed to get the hellbeast off he'd find it nigh impossible to leap from the idol now that he'd landed upon it. A thin layer of bone had coated the top, almost like fishhooks to sink into his boot and keep him tied down while The Walker adjusted his strategy.