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The end comes closer to the real end.

Rules:

1. This will be judged by three people and have sixteen combatants. All round battles are in ONE TOPIC, such as “First Round” will be for the first set, and “Second Round” for the second, etc. This matches the most recent and also the most classic form for the NLBFT, as it was the first form used and also the most recent, as reinstated by SML.

2. This is for serious battlers only. I won’t restrict who joins and who doesn’t, but if you cannot write, do not join this very important event, for either judge or battler. By saying “Cannot Type”, I mean no spaces, punctuation, capitalization, etc. I would prefer that only seniors and vets join, but newbies of high skill level and regular members are just as welcome. It is a free forum, after all. Remember, this is a tournament of high pedigree, and you will likely be facing tough opponents, so do not expect to be baby treated. High quality posts will probably be a must from the judges, and you would do best to remember that. Judges must be older members with a healthy amount of experience and lack of bias. Please heavily consider the responsibilities, as any judge who does not post a judgment within a week of the round’s end (with only a few exceptions) will be replaced or confronted.

3. There is a strict time limit. I've reset this to 2 days before a full point is lost, and one more before you're up for either another deduction or possible elimination. I'll make exceptions where due, but we need to make this a little quicker than last time around. Remember this, as it is standard, and complaints will only be considered if not simply whining. Also, reasons to have been absent are to be discussed by the judges as acceptable or not. If your computer explodes and you had no access to another, fine, but if you simply were too bored to try, it is elimination. It sounds retarded, but it isn’t. Trust me.

4. The judges word is final. I want to see good sportsmanship from the loser, and likewise from winner. I will be honest and tell you that if I lose my battle, I will not complain. Simply put, it is un-sportsmanlike and very dishonorable.

5. The first to post has battlefield choice in their specific battle. Make it something past generic, and give it some specialty and pizzazz. Not to say having an interesting battlefield is a rule, it’s just kind of useful.

Matchups:

Alpha:
Selene vs. Phenom

Beta:
Galefore vs. Vapor

Judges:
Seat 1: Saria Dragon
Seat 2: Repster
Seat 3: Kargath

Same points criteria as last round for me.

*Will post intro in less than 20 minutes*
..
20 minutes later:
<<<<>>>>
A man approached a cathedral in the wastes of a small village in the shadow of a mountain. He was a very strange-looking man -- in fact, upon closer inspection, he was not a man at all. He was a scarecrow--an animate scarecrow, with a jack o' lantern as a head and sorcery as its soul. He was stuffed with a fibrous white substance, contained by a ragged green long-sleeved shirt and a long pair of rough burlap pants. A wide-brimmed, dull brown hat sat upon his sinisterly grinning pumpkinhead. It had a rough leather belt hanging-or sagging- across his waist, from which hung a holster containing something like a crowbar merged with a six-shooter and a little knot in the belt held a smallish pitchfork. He was Vengeance Twilight, and was ready for some intense action. In his gloved right hand he held a scythe, and in his left hand he held the cathedral's doorknob. He turned the knob and entered.

The church, like the town, had been long abandoned. It was covered with dust and the wood was rotting in various places. The pulpit and pews had been empty for decades, and there had been no Eucharist for even longer--God had indeed forsaken this church. Which was fortuante for Ven.

Ven looked around and found the entrance to the catacombs beneath the cathedral. He descended the creaky wooden stairs to a cracked stone floor, and pulled open, with difficulty, a large vault door.

Within the vault were, as one would expect, many artifacts of death. There were large vaults containing indivudual caskets, and there were bones and skeletons littered around in large amounts on the floor.

But in this crypt, the skeletons on the floor were different in two ways: One, they had all died as victims of battle, as evidenced by many dagggers and swords still lodged in their brittle ribcages and broken limbs. Second, they were completely fresh. They were not those of people who died and were brought here, but they were those who died within these very catacombs. Why did they die? These catacombs were not for the burial of the dead-they were for making dead. That is to say, this crypt was the place for true warriors to go to the whispery cloak of death. They came to fight here, and die in battle. These particular catacombs were known as the Graveyard of Valhalla.

Now, Ven was definitely a warrior. But he had not come here to die- he had come here for an intense, dedicated fight to the death. He didn't want to die, so he didn't really belong here, but it wasn't the first time he was messing everything up. Heck, his very existence messed things up. But no matter. Vengeance was anticipating eagerly his opponent.

Ah, Vapor... This will be a blast. And I mean that.

And I sincerely believe you.

Darn, I guess it's too late to sign up, isn't it?

Yeah, by about... a month and a half.

Do you get it yet?

[video]1lyyzk0vXPE[/video]
((Threateningly violent music. Woo!))

**********************

Travel, she might have said if asked, was something of a specialty for her. Others could dart about the battlefield unhindered, or simply bull through anything that might get in their way. Not her- her method was a bit more.... unorthodox.

The wind whipped close-cut indigo hair, slightly stinging her heterochromatic eyes as she sailed through the air on one of her longer leaps. She was still adjusting, of course- still unused to having her depth perception from several years spent as an artificial cyclops. The scar remained, a thin line from slightly above the center of her left eyebrow down onto her left cheekbone. It nearly met the larger and far more jagged scar covering most of that cheek, one that seemed more ripped than stabbed or cut.

To be fair, it was startling the small woman was not more a mass of scars. For years now, she had been fighting bare-handed, receiving and turning aside through sheer endurance and skill blows that would have felled most others. A shorter slash ran from under the corner of her right eye down near to her jaw, the marks of several almost spiraled cuts ran her arms and left leg, it seemed her right shoulder had been nearly severed once, and crossing scars marked the site of her right kidney. Most impressive of all, though, was the scar on her chest. A patch of pale near-white on her cinnamon skin rode from her collarbone down onto her breast slightly. The edges of the round mark, the diameter of a large apple, were even more jagged and torn-looking than the marring of the young woman’s cheek.

Clearly, she was accustomed to battle, and the grace of a skilled warrior was mixed in her motions with a kind of savage impromptuism demonstrated on her landing. Her feet touched down on a large boulder standing alone by the edge of the craggy-gray ravine with a lightness belying her stocky build. Silver and green darted as she glanced about, flexing her feet at the ankle to not so much jump again as gently bounce off from the large rock towards a pile of scree at the base of a steep slope. A midair roll landed the palm of one hand on the mass of pebbles, which scraped and grated under the pressure from her fingerless leather glove. A quick scrape and somersault sent the grit flying away from her to spread across the ground.

Space newly cleared, one doeskin moccasin touched down. Her cloak barely had time to begin settling, the white cloth threatening to drape itself over her head and obscure her vision, before she was off again. She sprang up into the air like some kind of human flea, reaching for broken granite at the apex of a jump that must have breached nearly thirty feet vertical. As her travel slowed, her fingers gripped the rock deftly, arms flexing with incredible speed as she moved up the cliff face that had become of the earlier slope. Her jump might as well not have stopped, the transition was so smooth, and she fairly shot up over the edge of a large ledge.

Moments later, she was up past her leggings in unmelted snowpack, the tassels on her calf-bands quickly becoming soaked as the woman paused to take in her next stretch of travel. For all that her clothing was so light, she gave no indication of chill in the more-than-crisp mountain air. Her arms hung ready at her sides, elbows slightly akimbo- and then she was off again. In moments, she had risen to run on the top of fragile drifts. Her loincloth shed snow while she ran, almost as if the elk-leather were oiled. The split-sided ‘miniskirt’ she wore over it had not touched the frozen water thanks to only reaching mid-thigh, allowing the heavy cloth of it to stay dry and avoid soaking the broad belt of pouches encircling her waist.

The mountains here were known for their appearance- The Slabs, they were called, massive upthrusts of granite and other supremely hard rock. They cut across the continent like a knife-edge, forcing divisions of country and even of race with their natural barrier. Some might have expected to find Goliaths here, but the huge and somewhat lumpy tribespeople preferred more temperate mountains- little would grow near the tops of The Slabs. The massive terrain feature had impeded all movement for centuries and gave every appearance of intending to do so for millenia more. And yet, here came Fallen Star, not only challenging that but outright overcoming it.

Mouth set into a fairly typical grim line, the scarred woman leaped, grabbed an outcropping, swung a short arc, and twisted to run along a slope, leant out nearly sideways as she darted across a gap in the ledge. A quick spiral brought her feet under her again at just the right moment, allowing her to pull a wrenching turn around a sharp curve in the rock face.

Her complicated chest-binding, like the rest of her clothing, did little to ward off the cold, leaving it a mystery that she wasn’t turning blue and curling into a ball. The thin strip of decorated leather looped through the front of it and passed behind the buckle of her pouch-belt might have had more to do with the matter, one of the various magical raiments that Fallen Star wore by habit as much as from need. Similarly her torc, the thick band of brassy metal sitting slightly loosely about her neck. Now and again, the engraved clouds and lightning bolts would catch the light, sending a gleam into the clear sky for nobody at all to spy.

Or perhaps there was somebody? The short woman tumbled down a cleft in the mountain face with a slightly concerned look on her face. Despite the crazed whirling she was engaging in, bouncing by hands and feet off from two uneven rock surfaces to bleed off speed constantly, she maintained her focus. She had the sense that something was coming. Not one to brush off her instincts, she did not fall so much as dive into a thicker snowdrift at the bottom of the missing wedge, the marbled opal in her silver-plated wire headband gleaming brieftly.

Then, she paused, listening. She waited longer than it took for the snow she’d disturbed to finish its own downward trip, tiny chunks and flakes settling near the hole she’d punched. The feeling was almost familiar now. There was someone here.

Silently, she began burrowing through the snow, seeking out the source of this discomfort, two colors of eye narrowed to thin slits. She’d ways other than sight to find this antagonist. Perhaps she could catch them unawares?

Editing post in in the next half-day. It's been hectic on my end and unfortunately writing hasn't managed to be a top priority. You'll soon get my entrance, Selene.

Numbered even where the days of earth, whose majesty spread like wildfire across the plains of history; distinguished though it be, the earth was riddled with dead, and the dead where covered in earth. The earth was writhing in filth. Those whose heroic misgivings were lauded and praised by human waste were also those whose lifeless flesh and bone were placed in honor in a little cubby-hole under the earth. It was cold there, just as it should be. Only the dead belonged here. As it were, it was a true ‘path of the dead’, only the dead themselves neither made nor kept this walkway.

Life or death was never a question of what a warrior decided. Neither, then, was the question of who removed that flicker of life from the bodies of the earthbound soul. As such, Erasmus Sindierus took it upon himself to show the fallacies of earth to all, with a blade of gnarled blood placed inconspicuously in their bodies as he walked away satisfied.

He wondered if any of his own victims lay there as heroes; that their bones were revered instead of returned to ash sickened him. He stroked his little tuft of blue chin-scruff, which matched the short, well-kept strings of similarly aged hair on his wrinkled head. Red spots on his face gave more to the effect that he was quite elderly, as did his belabored pace. But he was quite capable, as well as young; experimentations on the human body do, after all, have interesting side-effects.

He was tall, relatively 6’5. His only clothing was a nondescript but somewhat scholarly grey robe, which trailed to his ankles and only allowed for a small, curved shoe-point, almost ridiculous in its elf-like whimsy, to be shown. And all of the elements lent to one image: a traveling, elderly scholar with a spiteful life but an honest soul.

Yet that is barring the two gleaming poles of jagged, dripping red ice jutting from the man’s shoulders.

Known to many as the ‘bloodcrafter’, Erasmus was a being of sheer confusion. Bourn of blunders and scientific funding, he was the stereotypical killing machine all governments wanted; impervious to death by blood-loss, and able to craft his chemically-laden blood into solid weaponry. His ferocity in battle lent a certain fame to him and others modeled after him. His further modifications led to his ability to manipulate moisture into solids, or, with much concentration and much fatigue, even form human flesh into ice.

But his past was not important. All that mattered was his justice, his destruction of those he deemed unbearable. He had been built to be a sort of sentinel, to keep peace; unfortunately, he was rather… “Broken”, and as such believed all life to be errant. After all, even scientists can make mistakes.

“The filth… Such creatures always glorify their trophies, their skulls and their gold and their frivolity… I will cleanse them, it is only a matter of their cleansing, yes…”

And as such, the scholarly man tore the spike from his shoulder and began calling out challenges in tongues of men and of beasts, and begged in solitude for a challenger.

It is fortunate, as they say, that challenges are never far away for those who are a penny short. Or perhaps they don’t say that; even so, it bears no less significance. Moths to the flame, they say, or perhaps moths to the freezer.

The Slabs were indeed a magnificent range of snow-laced granite mountains, but their prominence and historical importance did not come solely from its natural and profound majesty, but also for its role as the natural barrier between those of different colour, creed and lifestyles. The Slabs’ beauty resonated far and wide over its sizable realm on the continent, and tribes that called any portion of the mountains their home were held in high-reverence and envy of those who could not make a similar claim.

Many tribes in the lower reaches of The Slabs lived life as hospitable and pacifistic people who would never hesitate to facilitate the travels of mountaineers or neighboring villagers in their travels through their territory. However, if one was to traverse up to the higher altitudes, it would become abundantly clear that tribal philosophies changed drastically. For those who dwelled high up on The Slabs did so to associate themselves to the deities they tirelessly worshipped. Many high chiefs of these isolated peoples claim that from their settlements high up in the unforgiving snow drifts near the mountain peaks, one can reach skyward and feel the breath of the gods themselves. These tribes fancied themselves closer to immortal than all others, and as a result would reward any outsider who was unfortunate enough to stumble upon their civilization with a swift and painful demise. To set foot within the boundaries of their holy land was the equivalent of wishing for death.

While every tribe in the upper reaches of The Slabs considered themselves a force to be reckoned with, there was one that was hailed as the most merciless clan throughout the ranges. They lined the borders of their realm with the appendages of those who had not taken heed when passing through. Some of the more sadistic tribesmen would opt to crudely stitch together the flesh of their multitude of victims and adorn the revolting cornucopia of gore as a cloak, cape or other such accessories. They were a merciless, heartless and domineering band of holy-rolling murderers, and they also happened to claim the land that Fallen Star had boldly entered.

As she burrowed covertly into a sizable snow deposit, a caravan of regional tribesmen purged through the misty unknown created by the swirling winds. Four hulking specimens with long, untamed hair trailing behind them marched through the deep snow crest near Fallen Star’s hiding place, each holding the corner of a large wooden platform. Each figure was clothed in long cloaks made from heavy fur that nearly fell to their feet, where they wore boots made from the same wooly animal’s heavy brown pelt. Their eyes held glares as cold as the weather around them, and while the platform they lifted looked to weigh much more than any of them, their bulging and vein-riddled muscles that were left uncovered never looked to tire. Atop the platform which was riddled with various fur blankets, a large throne made of granite was occupied by a pale-skinned man who was undoubtedly their ruler.

Unlike those who bore the weight of his primitive vehicle, he wore no furs to shield him from the winter elements, only covering the lower half of his body with a kilt-like garb made from a beige-furred and leaner creature. He was nowhere near as physically imposing as his underlings, but his lean frame was brimming with chorded muscles and a visible web of bulging veins that indicated he was more than capable of physical domination. His bald head was tattooed with the dark ink of archaic tribal symbols, their pattern only interrupted by a thick scarlet beard that cascaded off his chin before it became braided at its tip, giving him a vague resemblance to some depictions of Satan. The most remarkable quality of the high-chief was undoubtedly his chest, which bore a tattoo of a single red eye that spanned the length of his pectorals and from his collar cones to his mid-abdomen. The marking was striking in that it seemed as though through some optical illusion that it bulged from his chest and was not a decoration at all, but was in fact a massive third eye.

Fallen Star remained prone in her hideaway, marveling at the demonic customs of the tribe before her. Silently they trudged through rock and snow, almost out of sight. They had almost disappeared out of sight when the man in the throne let out a low bellow at his carriers in a tongue Fallen Star could not decipher in the least. The caravan came to an abrupt halt, and in a sudden display of agility, the tattooed man nimbly leapt high in the air, back-flipping before touching down on the ground. He proceeded to berate his chauffeurs in his incomprehensible language before one of the hulking specimens removed a long, rusted blade from within his coat. The tattooed man snatched it from his hands, swinging it playfully through the air, letting loose a low, disturbing chuckle.

“Interloper!” he cried out, suddenly speaking in a tongue that Fallen Star could understand.

“You have tainted our land of piety and grace with your clouded soul! I sense you…I sense your evil being carried with the winds!”

Fallen remained perfectly still, waiting for her opportunity to spring.

“I am Hagen! Leader of the Twin Peaks clan! Reveal yourself and face holy vindication!”

He once again cackled long and low, tossing his rusted blade in the air as if it were a toy. Motioning for his entourage to stay back, he waited with a quiet intensity for the soul he sensed to make his or her presence known. For Hagen, it was yet another day and yet another soul to donate to the bloodthirsty architects who created him.

"You don't need to yell for challengers. I'm right here. I've been standing here for about 10 minutes waiting for someone to come," the Scarecrow said to Erasmus, interrupting his screamed challenges. He did not seem intimidated by the strangeness of the frozen blood, or seemed to even notice it. "Really, are you blind? or senile, you melodramatic, pretentious old geezer? Where's the Nursing Home For Freaks that you escaped from?" He mocked, with his jagged, carved grin.

And Erasmus was mad. He charged at Ven and threw, javelin-like, the spike at Ven's face, and took the other spike and was ready to make a charging stab at his chest. The flying spike did nothing as it landed in his carven eye and melted in the fire inside his head. As the Bloodcrafter was about to land the spike in Ven's non-heart, Ven, chuckling, dodged and leaped right over him to the other side of the room like a pogo stick on amphetamines and took out his crowbar. He pulled a small trigger near its curve and started shooting rapidly at Erasmus with it, cackling quietly while firing.

OoC: For future reference, my character here is actually more of a calculative murderer whose general attitude towards insult is passive. I doubt he would find rage in any form of jejune exercise in taunting, but hey, I can’t change what’s already happened.

“Truly juvenile.”

Bullets crossed his aged body, leaving holes open and blood pouring. He winced for a moment before grinning a senile grin and allowing his blood to harden over the wounds. No need to stop his bleeding, but saving ‘ammo’ was a good idea.

Miscalculation had already been a mistake thus far; this beast was of flame, and flame is a disgusting thing. He fled backward into the catacombs, numbly tearing away the makeshift plugs he had fashioned earlier. A cascade of distracting laughter and fire could be heard behind him, before a silence. He let himself bleed long enough to form a pool, and lay there; after all, it was doubtful his opponent knew quite yet that Erasmus had a strange control over his blood.

The figure of the scarecrow crept closer, its lifeless features scanning the fresh corpse. “Well, ****. That was really boring. Old ass, I wanted a fight! Do you hear me? A fi--”

Before Ven could finish hurling his child-like disappointments at Erasmus, a long, sharp pike had risen out of the blood quickly, lifting Ven far into the musty air, before falling and rising again, once again puncturing his body of straw. As Erasmus crept backwards with a look of distaste, one final barrage of spikes lifted itself into Ven’s falling body, this time remaining and twisting around his back.

A death ‘cage’.

“Rather a situation the arrogant find themselves in; they cast the ugliest of words, yet I destroy them in the most beautiful of entrapments. It takes a special type of ignorance to insult a judge.”

He stood there, looking at his creation in self-praise. Four spikes in all, twisting and marbled with the darkest of maroon. Each spike curled further, likely to ‘roll’ the corpse into a sea of smaller spikes below. For someone who had been so vocal before, Ven was now eerily silent, still gripping his crowbar as his head glowed of fire.

“Now, filth, slip into freedom.”

OoC: While Vapor has thus far exhibited that he inflicts some sort of drop-out curse on his opponents, I believe I have a lesser power in the ability to impose the 60-hour penalty on mine.

The Slip

((Sorry about the wait- Real Life takes to making me feel poorly fairly well. Rather ironic that my first ‘weekend’ from my new job would be spent a bit sick and super-busy with cleaning and such. Ah, well.

Side note: Nephews are messy.

[video]2tA2n-o7jms[/video]

Woo more music.))

Fallen Star was a bit put off. She hadn’t had any warning, as such, of these sorts of people living in the Slabs- not, she mused, that anybody was likely to. If this was how they reacted to travelers, chances were that none who had seen them had survived. This perturbed the somewhat stocky woman, as she felt it was likely others at her level of skill had been among those. She would need to be careful.

She was tempted to introduce herself to this... Hagen... but knew better. Far more important to retain some advantage than to engage in meaningless theatrics. Slipping through the underpack, she moved to the side of the slope face, remaining under the snow. Once there, she began carefully clearing the dimly sparkling whiteness away from the rock, in search of something.

*********

Not the least put off by the foreigner’s refusal to show themself, the tribal leader continued idly tossing his blade. This silent waiting and watching was sure to unnerve the evil one. Even the most patient of the sneaks would have to move eventually, and he was more than patient enough to stand and idle until that time. There was little that would put off members of such a clan- it would take something akin to an-

-KRAK-

....avalanche.

Massive slabs of snow began loosening themselves from the slope after the surprisingly quiet sound of flesh on stone. Turning his head, Hagen looked up, up towards the peak of the mountain, seeming to ignore the slow, rumbling sound that had just started in favor of measuring the disaster starting to happen. Wherever this soul had struck, the vibrations had carried through the mountain for nearly a mile, defiling the stone still further with the influence. Proof of that stood in the way the pristine white snow hurried to separate itself from the terrain, at first gradually, but always faster and faster.

This might go badly.

*********

Fallen Star waited for the rumbling to draw nearer. She’d no particular desire to fight, and if she could evade this (somewhat demented) tribesman, then she would. The woman had measured the stone as best she could manage with her sight and touch before striking and intended to use this diversion. It was a bit extreme as a diversion, but she had no teammates, there were no large animals around to spook into stampeding, and she carried very little with her. She would have to rely on the land to provide.

And provide it did, she could hear the mass of snow tumbling ever closer in massive boulders and clouds of billowing powder. It was hard to judge distance, with only the sound to go by and no way of knowing just how much of the snowcap she’d affected. Still, she would do the best she could- and as the avalanche crescendoed to its greatest noise, a mere fifty feet from her hiding place- she shot forth.

Thick legs moving with a surprisingly light patter, Fallen Star erupted from the snowbank on the far side from the bloodthirsty clan leader. With her cloak about her, she was merely a white shape darting across the level white snow of the ledge- until she reached the edge. Skill borne of hard training allowed her to bleed off her momentum with a backflip, leaving her briefly upside-down and facing Hagen. She made no gesture of acknowledgment, eyes darting first to the blade-wielding man and then to the avalanche he was just turning away from.

Then, once more, she was running. The cliff face was steep, but smoothed by time, wind, and snow, and so rather than plummeting normally or bouncing from crags and jags, the woman actually ran down the incline. Despite her inversion and the precision needed to maintain such an action without accidentally launching away from the side of the mountain, the purple-haired woman seemed untroubled, accelerating her approach to the next ledge. Of course, this was completely neccessary with the avalanche following behind her.

Well-protected against the cold by her own toughness and her garments she might be, but she had no intention of attempting to use that to survive actually within the avalanche. Her real specialty was movement. An adroit leap took her just barely over the approaching ledge, hair brushing the small drift of snow caught there as she inverted again. The avalanche continued to accelerate itself, though the sound had long since reached its peak, there being simply no more air to fill with the noise of crumbling, tumbling snow and ice.

Then, she was running again. It would be quite some ways to the bottom of the valley, more a testament to how high up she had been than to the depth of the crook between mountains itself. After all, that as well was above the snowline. It occurred to Fallen Star that perhaps Hagen would survive all the way down- she certainly was, after all. Dodging a tenacious and soon to be short-lived tree, Fallen Star frowned.

Why was it that there was always somebody determined to get in her way?

^^DAAAAMN that sucks. My curse has finally stopped, though. Hope it didn't get passed on to you.:/

And to Gale, sorry for not knowing that about Erasmus; I don't know much about him other than what I've seen in his bio. so whatever.
<<<>>>
Ven didn't think deep thoughts as he was being rolled into seeming oblivion. His thoughts were more along the line of, ****...goddamn..stupid...ice...thing.......**** it. gotta concentrate...frickin'...spikes...hurts... but I can still move. Now...

He commenced his escape by making his scythe glow. Which in and of itself didn't do much, and it amused Erasmus slightly as he saw it happen.
"A mere glow is all you have to say? I suppose you spent all your other words earlier." He commented, and chuckled.

But suddenly a brown torrent burst through the floor of the catacombs right beneath Ven. It looked like a tremendous brown, dirty arm, rising up from the floor and grabbing Vengeance from the Pit of Cold n' Spiky Doom. Erasmus had NO CLUE AT ALL what had just happened, but as the rush of brown stopped moving, with Ven lying (relatively) comfortably on top, he saw what it was-- a gigantic cord of roots. At least 50 of them. Apparently the roots of a large tree, or more likely many really, really large trees; each one was about a foot in diameter.

Ven jumped off of his botanical pedestal, with some strain due to the spiking. Erasmus was able to respond by now, and sent the same ice in a giant spike at Ven. The Scarecrow's expression did not change as the scythe again glowed--and the pillar of roots started moving again, and slammed into the spike from the side, smashing it to millions of tiny shards; It then flowed towards Erasmus and wrapped around him, constricting him in a giant vegetable fist. And it continued to constrict, with the force of normally placid Nature unleashed, as it was with such sorcery, squeezing him relentlessly; nearly crushing his bones.

Ven said, acid-tongued, to Erasmus, "Like YOU'RE not arrogant? Like big pretentious proclamations about the nature of people like me aren't arrogant? bull****." To add injury to insult to injury, Ven let a stream of his searing candle flame out of his eyes into Erasmus' face. The force of the roots was increasing.

OoC: Damn. I'll need a deus ex machina for that one... I apologize to the judges if I'm late, I've almost no computer access. I just now got to read Vapor's post, so excuse me if I am unable to make the time limit. I hope you can understand being completely stripped of computer.

Hey, I needed a deus ex machina for your post. but no hard feelings, Sorry if you can't post.

If not for their imminent demise cascading rapidly down the mountainside a mere acre away, the rugged quintet of tribesman may have been frozen with surprise at the sudden and immediately profound introduction of the stout woman. Instead, the hulking entourage’s natural survival instincts from years in the upper reaches of The Slabs inherently kicked in, with the troupe making haste for the higher ground provided by the ledges where Fallen Star had disappeared to moments before.

The ominous rumble of the avalanche drowned out any sound even if one were to scream at the top of his lungs. In lieu of his authoritative commands, Hagen opted instead to lead by example, nimbly scurrying up the side of a nearby cliff before pushing off the slippery slope with the impressive momentum conjured by his generously sculpted lower body. His arms extended in front of him to their full extent, the burly chief vaulted in a smooth, almost majestic way through the air, before wrapping his arms around the granite ledge that jutted out the other side of the gap he had just cleared. Pulling himself up onto the outcropping frequented by Fallen Star seconds before, Hagen gazed at his fellow tribesmen below, motioning frantically for them to follow suit.

One by one the much larger men scraped their way up the cliff side opposite their leader before thrusting themselves desperately across the gap, their animal pelts flowing behind them as they soared across the enclave before latching on to the ledge where Hagen waited with a sense of dire urgency physically displayed by his running on the spot. As the third of his four underlings hoisted himself up, it was clear that there was no more time to wait. Hagen took one last fleeting glance back at his fourth tribesman’s ascent of the cliff before sprinting away from the looming disaster the avalanche offered, in time to avert his gaze from the mass of snow, ice and rock devouring the tardy member of the tribe, his scream of terror muted by the deafening roar of the natural disaster itself.

Out of breath but still churning their legs as fast as they could through the deep snow drifts, Hagen’s followers navigated over perilous gaps in the rock and slick, crumbling ledges in attempt to stay pace with their crimson-bearded superior. Their resolve to survive at all costs was exemplified when a second member of their band of brothers lost his footing and fell to the ground while they careened down a steep depression in the rocks while their snowy doom trailer them by a mere hundred feet. No member broke stride to help their comrade, whose brown-furred body and physically imposing frame was no match for the countless tones of merciless nature that washed over him, delivering unto him an instant sub-zero crypt.

As Hagen continued to make his way towards the valley that the mysterious trespasser had no-doubt taken refuge within, he no longer worried himself with the fate of his fellow warriors. Their fate was sealed in their inferior physical capacity and endurance which the tattooed man saw as a sign of descent from the gods he praised with such conviction. Leaping, lunging and sprinting without the slightest sense of fatigue, he knew that his tightly-knit relationship with his personal deities would deliver him from the danger he was currently evading. His mind was no longer on the precipices or snow drifts he sailed across without difficulty, nor was it set on the sizable chunk of land mass hot on his heels. Instead, his mind’s eye only paid tribute to the vision of the stocky female intruder who would soon meet the vindicating end of his blade. This vision in his head was so intense, that he cared not to even glance back at the rush of snow, trees and granite that had finally caught up with his final two disciples, enveloping them in its awe-inspiring glory.

His limbs pumping in with almost mechanical precision, Hagen grimaced with fury so pure that it seemed to send a searing feeling through the eye emblazoned on his chest. This woman had breeched the hallowed grounds of his tribe, hidden from her holy judgment at his hands, and proceeded to decimate the natural order of all things by coaxing the snow spirits to seek vengeance through the realm in the form of the avalanche. His disciples, his gods and his own dignity would be avenged when he purged his land of the evil he pursued.

As Hagen reached the same valley Fallen Star currently traversed, his sense of rage had grown into such a state that the chieftain’s physical surroundings no longer registered in his consciousness. Fallen Star’s scarred, battle-hardened face took precedence as his body merely went through the motions in the physical world. His athleticism, endurance and lifetime living in the treacherous environment had engrained his survival instincts deep into his being, making the evasion of the impromptu natural disaster a matter of muscle memory.

A brief reprieve from his visions of Fallen Star came abruptly however; as he recognized his chance to finally escape the avalanche mere feet away. A massive slab of rock protruding from the side of the valley slope took the form of a natural ramp, and below it, surely a sturdy enough place of refuge. Without giving the situation at hand a proper second assessment, Hagen sprung into action, scampering underneath the outcropping, seconds before the eardrum-rattling whoosh of the avalanche rolled over top of him, its mass so incredibly heavy that for a moment Hagen thought his shelter would not hold as fissures began to form in plentiful amounts in the granite he crouched under.

But the makeshift shelter gave hold as the roar of the avalanche subsided. With no time to spare buried several feet under the surface, the hate-fuelled tribesmen went to work. As the vision of the sinner appeared again, Hagen blasted upwards with force so profound that the already weathered rock gave way like hot butter being parted by a knife. The hard-packed snow of the avalanches entrails exploded into the air with the violence of a water geyser as Hagen burst through his temporary tomb and back to the surface; a landscape had been forever altered by the avalanche. The tops of trees barely jutted out from under the snow, now resembling small shrubs littering the snow-swept terrain.

Hagen squinted hard, surveying the valley for any signs of his rival. Removing his rusted blade from the sheath on his back, Hagen gritted his teeth and let a low and gravelly growl as he cautiously made fresh tracks in the snow, the sense of another presence in the area willing him forward. It was now time for the elements to give way to battle. For the gods to take their seats a witness Hagen’s bloody offering to them. It was time to fight.

^^Dude, there's never any hard feelings. I understand completely; always step it up a notch, never merely equal an opponent. I'll post tonight, BTW; I'm in the middle of writing a post right now.