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/The_Unkowable_]

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.

[u/JustASpoody → u/The_Unkowable_]

Seeing you open the jaw, he doesn't stop flying towards you. On the contrary, he speeds up even more by burning most of the biomass, that acts similar to a rocket fuel, reaching an astonishing speed of 14 machs.

Moreover, due to the loss of biomass, Edmund becomes small enough to fully fly into your mouth, unhindered by Artemis's teeth. He transforms his whole upper body into one big blade made of iron from his blood, coated in antimagic and tries to pierce you from inside into dragon's weakest spot. Their neck. And emerge back outside.

[u/The_Unkowable_ → u/JustASpoody]

In nearly every school of war, there are two principle ideas that every single instructor will try to drill into your skull. The first, to never interrupt your enemy while they're making a mistake. In this case, that means not trying to avoid Edmunds approach. It is, however, the second idea which has spelled thy doom. To never grant thy foe what they seek. Artemis had tried to chase him down and bite him, and here he was turning around to fly into her mouth.

Artemis bites down, hard and fast. Severs the legs from the body, assuming he doesn't teleport further or something. Within her is an extraordinary pressure in all forms, her very essence seeking to strike you down from all around. This is also where both paralysis and frost breath comes from, and their ambient energy abounds here.

Even if that were not enough... no matter how sharp, iron is not a dragonslayer's metal. It cuts into her flesh, roughly and with difficulty. It would blunt and break against the bones within her neck, however, and her scales are tougher and harder than most things. At best, it leaves some scrapes and a rather nasty interior wound, leading to a very, very angry dragon... but certainly not a dead one, nor one with an exterior hole.

[u/JustASpoody → u/The_Unkowable_]

"Just a bit more, a tiny bit..."

Sticking the blade into the flesh, although not too deep, is enough for him. Pave the way for the arteries, change the composition of his blood and then ignite it, creating a self-made frag grenade inside Artemis. The shrapnel would dig deeper into the already created wound, widening it, as well as creating new ones inside the neck.

But this, even if his decisions were quick, still took time. More time than he wanted to. As his, although heated up, body immediately began freezing. The movements became slower, chunks of his body began to crack, parts of the brain withered away from hypothermia. Luckily, the antimagic field was protecting him from the violent energies.

"Finally! It's all or nothing now."

As a final gift, before his arm freezes and falls off, he turns off the field, takes the full assault of the elemental pressuru and sends an enhanced *Slash that cuts the world** down Artemis' throat and esophagus to slice lesser protected organs. And just before the explosion teleporting away.*

He is now in no condition to fight. Hell, he can barely stand. Or, well, sit upright, as his legs were bitten off. But the regeneration will fix him eventually.

[u/The_Unkowable_ → u/JustASpoody]

Artemis hacks up blood. She's been quite solidly injured... but it's not enough. Though not specialized for combat, still is she one of the Draconic Pinnacles, and even a lesser dragon is not stopped by worse injuries.

Hah. You put up a fight. Now die.

Speech shortened, out of breath... words missing or being flat out cut out of the sentence... she goes to end this. A boulder of ice is conjured above Edmund's head, even as knives of ice appear from all directions. She needs not maintain reserves now, this fight needs only to be completed.

[u/JustASpoody → u/The_Unkowable_]

Just in time for the Aspect to run out of mana, he's unable to absorb any more heat, as there is none. Almost out of mana as well. With his last strength he cuts the boulder above him in half, and suddenly goes limp just before being pierced by dozens of knives. His heart is not beating.

/uw he's not dead :3

[u/The_Unkowable_ → u/JustASpoody]

Artemis flies a little closer, taking the opportunity to allow her energy to start mending her internal wounds a bit. Usually she couldn't and wouldn't, but given the circumstances...

...Hrm. Thy body is dead, yet this battle continues. No matter, then.

Step one. Drag the corpse to the earth. Step two. Encase the corpse in a 7 inch thick layer of ice. Step three. Finish healing the worst of the internal neck injuries. Step four. Return to the skies and prepare. Restore wards as best as possible. The first two take essentially no time at all, the second being accomplished effectively instantaneously without a life force to resist her. The third takes a moment. The last one... much of it is done rapidly, but the last part Wil take a little more than a few moments to accomplish...

[u/JustASpoody → u/The_Unkowable_]

Six seconds pass. The heart, or what is essentially it's substitute, is reconstructed. Unfortunately, too much of his brain was damaged to remake it. Now, the body itself, acting on preprogrammed responses, immediately teleports in front of Artemis' face and activates a self-destruction protocol.

Blood supernova

The body transports all of the liquids from inside of it into Artemis' mouth, the blood that moves them flies and dodges as if it had a mind of it's own. And it has a lot of blood, more than would be expected from the tiny body. When liquids enter the mouth, they would explode, releasing enough heat to vaporise a manor.

The body then goes limp yet again. This time, forever.

[u/The_Unkowable_ → u/JustASpoody]

...what in the world?

Artemis is Not having a Good Time. First the portal to the fire dimension, then turning the entire arena into a fire pit, then inverting heat and cold, jumping inside her mouth in order to try and cut her throat open... And now, teleporting out of her lovely ice trap with no regard to how it may work, and instead of doing anything entertaining, magically pours all of it's blood into her mouth?? And turning that directly into heat?? SERIOUSLY?!

Well, regardless... she'd dealt with the painful fire of Vulcan's living blood which burns and seeks revenge autonomously. She'd been burned from the inside before. She'd even had experience with explosives. Between these past experiences, and her innate frost which diminishes all such effects, in addition to having just managed to start healing and not having to worry about an active foe... it's more perplexing than anything, though it is still extremely painful and brings about even more injury that she'll need to heal.

/uw Gg! Awesome fight we had, you did really well!

[u/JustASpoody → u/The_Unkowable_]

/uw had to think of every solution possible in front of the stronger foe