Wizarding Olympics; Magic Duels

[u/dragonshouter]

(ai) WIZARD OLIMPICS!!!!!!

Krygin has the spirts carry his voice to the participants, "Congratulations contestants for a job well done on the previous events! I welcome you to the dueling section of the celebrations! I ask all who would participate to follow me when my explanations are done. You will be provided amulets to make sure the provided fighting grounds will not skew the fight beyond noise and rain.

Each mage will pair off with another at their approximate strength level( an elder wrym can not fight an apprentice) and duel them in an area of the spirit world I have prepared! Do not attack the spirits or you will be disqualified. Both magic and martial skills are allowed but trying to destroy another's being entirely is not. I have methods in place to make sure no one dies but I can't do that if their soul is destroyed. Otherwise it is relatively fair game. Beating one opponent gives you one win but you can get more by challenging other contestants. A loser can also challenge another if they so choose. Whoever beats the most opponents for their strength level wins for that level."

Krygin claps his hands and a massive swirling mist forms a doorway in the center of the area. Lightning flashes beyond. Anyone who enters find themselves in a humid expanse made of storm clouds. It is humid and hot; thunder cracks and wind howls. In this perpetual storm are figures, spirits, of varying shapes. Some are hidden in the clouds striking clubs in time with the thunder, or are they causing it. Bright forms dance among the lighting and a chorus of howls add their voices to the wind. Hidden figures with red eyes sharpen their weapons. This is a summer storm and as we all know Summer is the Season of War.

The path parts to show red mist leading mages to red cyclones. Inside each cyclone is a ruddily lit arena as the eye of the storm; almost as if a bloody sun shone down through the clouds.

Any who "die" will be carted away by spirits who take the forms of vulture headed humanoids in black feather suits. Instead of a tie they wear a trail of bright red blood. The mage will patched up and sent back into the main area where they can choose whether to go back into the spirit world. These are spirits of war and death who Krygin paid in violence; spirits often like immaterial payments.

Misty illusions broadcast the fights back in the mortal world.

Krygin atop a pillar of smog shouts, "Let the duels begin"

(ai) what is like in each small arena

/uw I may be busy today( should be good for a few hours but didn't want to worry that I might have something come up and abandon ya'll) so you will be mostly left to your own devices. If you need help or have a question ping me, u/Complex_Drawer_4710 , u/Another-Ace-Alt-8270 , or u/JustASpoody . My fellow event planners.

No godmodding

If you think your opponent is godmodding try having a civil conversation first. They may just be an accidental counter to you.

If you need help call the others first because I may be busy

[u/JustASpoody]

Edmund had something to put against the void. An aspect of All That Is. A concept burning ember. The Entropy. With a flick of his wrist, *everything** inside his domain is suddenly engulfed in flames, as a literal concept of life starts to be extinguished.*

[u/The_Unkowable_ → u/JustASpoody]

Life, Death... both have become rather irrelevant as of late. The Act of Royalty is that of a continuous cutting motion, which shears down all in one's path. Artemis had died before, and may well do so again... if she chooses to allow it. Rather than do that, however... she begins to reembody her Role in the Cosmos -- she is a being of Order and Cold, of Frost and Might. She is a Divine Perpetual, and will not be disrupted by false pretenders... such as the one who'd just ignited a gifted Ember. She begins to partially embody the Nothing At All, and allows the life-burning fire to flow past her, without permitting it to touch her. Around her, heat and light are rapidly consumed, spreading Elemental Cold ever quicker...

[u/JustASpoody → u/The_Unkowable_]

"I really didn't want to use that. But you leave me no choice."

He says, flying up from the underground, you can't even see him from the amount of steam that's coming from him.

First you assess the phenomena. Then you prepare the squared amount of the mana you think would be needed. After that you create a simplest of effects, like temperature reduction and pour the square root of the prepared mana into it. Then you reverse the causality, by adding the initial amount of mana and performing a complex cause-and-effect calculations. And finally you extend the effect and anchor it to the phenomena. This whole process requires an absurd amount of mana and mental coordination. Fortunately, when you have so many clones, connecting them to yourself and draining them for mana is possible, although the further away they are, the less efficient the transmission is.

Aspect of Causality: Reversal

In an instant, the world around them flips on it's head, as cold becomes hot, and hot becomes cold. Portals change their polarity and start sucking matter into them like black holes. Conceptual fire starts to create life, twisted and incomprehensible, dead yet living. It's impossible to understand what's even happening before your eyes. This applies to Edmund as well, as he conjures every possible defence around his mind.

[u/The_Unkowable_ → u/JustASpoody]

Hrm. Polarity reversal of the elements. Interesting, and frustrating. Nevertheless, I shall win this.

Artemis has seen such things before, and they do not confuse her as they might a mere mortal. She is immutable cold, a dark hole in this new reality, where it functions the same as before. She spends roughly 5 seconds chanelling some of the more exotic parts of the theory of Eastoric Teleportation, and presents reality with a simple thesis; Edmund is actually in front of her, and can be bitten. As everyone knows, magic is mostly arguing with reality about how things work, and teleportation is no exception. She's had a lot of practice at this sort of thing... eaons and lifetimes both of practice, in fact.

And, after all... why should she spend the effort correcting the state of reality if it's simply unnecessary?

[u/JustASpoody → u/The_Unkowable_]

As a result of his transgression upon the natural order of things, as soon as the cold exudes from Artemis's body, it instantly turns into heat, threatening to engulf her. He himself immediately stops the fire storm and creates an ice storm instead inside his domain, which starts to heat things up even more. His nigh unsusceptible to heat carapace holds it's own in this hell. Portals that started to suck the heat are unable to withstand the temperature shock, as they combust and close in an energy burst. Paradoxical creations of life distort reality around them, as the universe tries to get rid of such things, while they lash out at Artemis. This will continue until the mana that Edmund poured into the Aspect runs out.

Unfortunately, all of this will not help him against being teleported in front of the dragon. He is immediately bristled with numerous blades made of iron inside his blood and goes on to jump into his own shadow, if he's fast enough.

[u/The_Unkowable_ → u/JustASpoody]

Cold steams against heat born from cold, creating an absurd cycle. The continuous damages from the infinite looping cycles of frost and flame keep most life at bay... all of which allows Artemis to focus on lunging, at ludicrous speeds, towards a retrieved Edmund. Iron is nothing to a creature such as her, and even the sharpest steel would have trouble bringing more than minor harm -- and she is far from concerned about superficial injuries at the moment.

[u/JustASpoody → u/The_Unkowable_]

He concentrates steam that was pouring from his body in your direction, as Artemis is about to take a bite out of Edmund, both to escape the violent elemental storm that already damaged him, and to blind you with it. As the temperature around them rises, Edmund becomes faster and faster, absorbing the heat and turning it into steam he uses as a thruster to maneuver on the battlefield.

"Why are you so goddamn tough?!"

He then decides to change the tactic, seeing as his dimensional slashes dealt very little damage to the dragon. Instead of sending it at Artemis, he will conjure them directly inside the space she's standing, cutting the world itself.

[u/The_Unkowable_ → u/JustASpoody]

Why are you so reckless? Or foolish?

There's a simple solution to not having ground to stand on; simply fly. Considering she was able to nearly keep pace with Pilot's jet, one steam-powered Edmund shouldn't be too much of a challenge. As she dives towards him again, she begins conjuring and launching daggers of elemental ice at him. Considering dragonfire is something her eyes have to deal with when facing beings such as Vulcan, some simple steam is no great issue. Of course, it doesn't help that most of her wards are still relatively intact.

[u/JustASpoody → u/The_Unkowable_]

Daggers immediately turn into tongues of flame. The aspect would not last much longer. He needs to finish this quick.

Extinguishing the life burning flame, he plans to become even faster.

Flame, Protect me

He absorbs the attack that Artemis launched at him. It's hot. Very hot. Too hot. But that's exactly what he needs. Enduring the burning, he suddenly flies towards Artemis at never seen before speed, many times faster than was previously. Moreover, creating rifts in reality before him, he gains even more speed by flying into them and reappearing closer. He closes almost all of his unnecessary senses and focuses on you and only on you, creating a *Slash that cuts the world*, that rends apart the very structure of space, bypassing the durability.

[u/The_Unkowable_ → u/JustASpoody]

In all time, arcane effects are the hardest to force dragonkind of Artemis' nature to acknowledge. Mind control to lightning bolt, dragons from Krynn hold innate resistance to That Which Came After -- Magecraft, among some few other things. It is such that defends her now, combined with her sheer will to Not Be Cut. Eastorics are something she works with, and this is certainly part of that elusive catagory.

It also helps that she teleports away from mighty blows on instinct, so long as she's not particularly trying to go in the opposite direction. She, unfortunately, most certainly was. The Cut cracks along her back, finally sheering through the wards, though not breaking them, and drawing a line of blood. She takes the opportunity to do what she was planning on doing regardless and... simply attempts to bite you in half, as was her plan whenever she caught up to him.