Osiris Open 2017 Round 1: Storm Veritas vs SirArtemis

The explosive blast Storm had fired down upon the archer appeared to be for naught; a pair of crossed daggers seemingly denying his energy. The wizard began to float down in a controlled descent, manipulating the space beneath his feet in a sort of hovering action. This trick wasn’t particularly useful, save perhaps for avoiding long falls, but the magician always relished in the move, as it looked extremely cool.

Oh, holy shit.

After dismissing what appeared to be the entire electric torrent, the ranger retorted with a preposterous flurry of rainbow-tipped projectiles. Without solid ground beneath him to serve as footing for an acrobatic leap, the experienced buffoon Veritas realized his serious gaffe. He had only one option; embrace the fall.

Releasing his channel of magnetic field, the wizard plunged helplessly down, his slisk-skinned dress shoes splashing a tiny wave of acidic awful up to the high calves. The reflexive leap was near instant, tumbling forward and to his left, a waving right hand protecting his face from the onslaught of arrows that sought to obliterate him. Beneath him, the acid had taken hold of his clothes, and it was hungry.

All the awful things seemed to hit him at once. The astringent scent of burning acid screamed loudest at his feet, as a pair of brutal red arrows exploded at his stomach. A single blue bolt took purchase of his flexed right bicep, and a long black arrow bludgeoned his gauntlet. Despite the magnificent armor of Moonwing’s scale, the black arrow completely numbed his hand, the Rat falling from his grasp as the salty wizard hit the ground in a heap, billowing dust forward at his enemy and back into the thirsty acid. None of the pain was so acute or horrific as the acid burn itself; the relentless burn was merciless and savage. Combat was unyielding; there was no time for pity.

Just get up. Don’t look down, your feet are a goddamned shit-show. Just get up. Act tough. Don’t look down or you and your limp spine are half as likely to pass the f*ck out. Act tough.

With a mighty groan, the electromancer gripped his sword in his left hand and drove it into the earth, pivoting the tip of the blade to drive his body upwards, his eyes a hazy white of gathered energy and agony. His pants were tattered and torn, shoes effectively gone, with a series of fast-growing bubbles and open sores festering as his flesh melted in a dizzying parade of pain. The experience was unholy, while the blue barb was spreading a wave of numbness throughout his arm. With an angry, dismissive wave, the Serenti champion knocked the tip of the Rat through the bolt, popping the barb from his arm in a fresh wave of searing horror.

Feet are f*cking dead; nowhere to run. Clock is ticking on consciousness; I need Attila to get me the hell out of here. Call that big brave beautiful idiot, and he’ll march his way direct into the line of fire, making him a hell of a steak but a terrible ride. Shit. Need a diversion.

Storm knew his options were beneath limited, and left him somewhere between “desperate” and “completely f*cked” in his parlance. The ranger’s abilities were seemingly boundless, and it didn’t seem like the wizard had an answer for anything. Perhaps mystic confusion was his best bet.

With a sharp whistle, the mage fired his right hand into his satchel, clumsily grasping his signet ring, the Might of Moxxilus. He pulled the thing onto the edge of his right middle finger as he extended the rat before him, summoning the extent of his electrical energy. Great sparks flew from his flesh in kinetic blue fragments, the sword returning before him as he struggled to stand tall. Eyes glowing white, Veritas spoke in an ancient tongue as energy pulsed frenetically about him.

“ Latitudo tanta tamque varios vires tuetur maxime vulnerari.”
( And so glows the great facade of strength, which protects the eminently vulnerable.)

His words ringing across the vapid expanse of the wastelands, Storm slipped the ring down upon his upright frame, becoming a stoic, blue-glowing monolith. A wave of rocky protrusions erupted about him, encapsulating the warrior in a chrysalis of motionless thick stone, which rooted itself affixed to the earth. The hum and crackle of electric energy continued to emanate from the periphery of the rock as the lightning master within held tight to his power. Far from the right side, Attila had begun approaching his master, still some ways from sight.

Hopefully this scares this asshole enough to chase him off…

Though the arrows had struck their mark, they did not kill. Unfortunately, Artemis was running out of time to do just that. As the older mage had landed in the acid, a pang of remorse rushed through the ranger as he couldn't help but feel guilty for instigating this fight. Though he knew it to be the right thing, no one deserved to suffer the pains of acid eating their flesh. He wanted to kill the mage, not make him suffer.

Now, his vision had already begun to blur, and shots of pain exploded throughout his body like little firecrackers of agony. He realized that whatever sinister magic lived in that blade that had cut him, it was angry, hungry, and powerful.

His muscles still tingled with uncomfortable spasms alongside the pain of the cut. His vision began to blur, fading in and out of focus. With the man's transformation into an almost solid block of lightning, Artemis had run out of options. He fired an arrow at the man only to see the crystallized projectile ricochet off as though it were a wooden stick thrown at a castle wall. A breeze whistled along, rolling across the green acid pools and dragging their fumes far away.

'I can't do it,' Artemis thought, an eye closing as his body began to tilt like a falling tree after being struck by a storm. The firecrackers of agony in his body had intensified in mere seconds with a burning sensation spreading throughout his frame, as though the acid pools had been poured into him and were eating their way out. 'I'm still not strong enough.'

Slouched over and barely holding himself up, Artemis finally lost his strength and fell to the dusty sandstone of the path.

'Artemis, we have to go. Leave this fight for another time. You cannot defeat him if you are dead, and this magic is spreading quickly. I fear if we do not do something soon, it may do permanent damage.'

Artemis lay there, through labored breath, and sensed the presence of a horse as it galloped down the path and into the range of his magical senses. Just a hundred feet away now.

"I have an idea," he answered Judicis' concerns softly. He awaited the galloping and majestic beast, hoping in desperation to use his vampiric magic on the animal to heal himself. Artemis feared that it wouldn't be enough and uncertainty regarding his choices made home in his mind.

'If I do not sense it helping, I am going to teleport you out of this mess whether you like it or not. I cannot have you die.' Judicis' answer felt stern in Artemis' thoughts, and he knew it to be sincere. This was his last chance. If he could not get to the horse in time, or if the healing did not help, he would need to leave this fight for another day.

(Bunny discussed and approved)

The archer moved with a relentless speed and precision, an apparent disconnect from any sort of pain or debilitation that Storm’s best efforts had laid upon him. With a turn of his head, the cocksure ranger looked towards the great Attila, now charging into battle atop the rocks crests which separated steaming acidic pools.

No, shit, no, stop boy!

Attila was headlong, oblivious to risk or danger that came with entering battle. The great horse was bucking his head as he drove his heavy, dense hooves forward, clapping them into the ground with little plumes of dust erupting at each strike. He snorted to take air, thinking only of rescuing his injured master.

Erstwhile, the ranger was nearly silent as he turned his attention. He hadn’t turned his magical bow towards the stallion, but the wizard that loved Attila thought it inevitable.

Stop, Attila, Stop!

Pulling a dagger from his hip, Veritas fired it at the stranger, a perfectly aimed projectile which ate nothing but air. The frame of the man vanished in a shadow, the blade landing and spinning harmlessly on hard earth. Desperately, Storm turned his eyes to the fiend, who had reappeared at the throat of Attila.

“Motherf*cker! NO!”

Before his words could echo, Attila was braying, kicking front hooves before him as he neighed with anger and high-pitched fear. The archer drove his face into the neck of the beast, wrapping his arms around the mighty neck and contorting his legs up toward the saddle. Helpless, the obsidian steed yielded, falling to the ground and splaying about his left flank. Hungrily the stranger feasted upon the blood of Storm’s fearless mount.

The all-encompassing pain that had enveloped Storm Veritas took a seat to his wrath. His eyes lit white and wild, his body hovering above the ground as his lips snarled and fingers twitched. The wizard was embodied rage, crackling about his perimeter with crackling ozone and tiny eruptions of blue-white electricity. His composure was displaced with animus, his emotion overcoming him.

Attila was off limits. You f*cking coward. Today is your last.

With blood trickling from his fingertips and feet rotting from acidic exposure, the floating near-deity spread arms wide and wild, collecting energy as the aura of white and blue focused between his long fingertips. He walked a few steps, oblivious to near-blinding pain, before he struck his mightiest blast.

Without mercy or reprieve, a massive, twisting, explosion erupted from two outstretched hands. A full scale bolt of pure lightning flashed at the archer, the menace sprawled across the fallen frame of his beloved companion. Hatred, outrage, and blind anger flowed from Storm Veritas in an unchecked barrage, a final assault meant with only one endgame.

Die.

Artemis could feel the red and black mist of magic pulling on the essence of the equine. As the magic moved the lifeforce from beast to man, his wounds and body recovered. However, he still could not know whether the sinister magic from the cut upon his leg had been affected. After seconds he had siphoned all he needed, leaving the animal alive and well enough to recover, while also recuperating from the earlier damage he'd suffered at the hands of the old man's attacks.

Looking up, he saw the mage once again floating in the air, this time illuminated with electrical power the likes of which he'd never seen. The glow and vigor of raw energy before him was awe-inspiring, despite the reality that this man sought to kill him.

Before he had a chance to think on the matter, he realized an enormous blast of energy was on its way. Instinctively, he pulled himself forward and up, placing himself between the horse and the caster. He lifted his hands to fire one last shot at the evil man floating before him, aiming one of his white arrows for the man's heart. Just as the mist flew forth and crystallized, the blast struck Artemis.

The raw energy launched him off his feet, back and over the horse, and to the opposite acid pool behind him. The horse whinnied in discomfort as the magic seemed to disperse as it hit Artemis, with traces of the energy finding their way into the still-living horse.

'I'm still not strong enough.'

Artemis could feel the rush of air resisting his fall as his eyes found their way to the sky. His consciousness faded. The blade's toxic kiss and a tremendous burning coursed through every fiber of muscle. A pain he had not felt in his life made its home in the warrior's body, and he could do nothing about it. He had failed.

As his eyes closed, the ranger accepting that this may be his end. Just before his body struck the hungry green acid, joining the bodies of the fallen, Judicis used the teleportive mark attuned to him for emergency use and sent Artemis across the land. Within an instant, and the fight over, the man lay in front of his friend Daros' house in Knife's Edge. The wizard sensed Artemis' arrival, rushing out the front door of his home urgently with his blue robes flapping in the wind. He pushed his spectacles further onto his nose and tried to fix his messy brown hair as he arrived at Artemis' side. Kneeling down, he reached for Judicis' passive form as a black bracer upon his wrist, allowing the ancient sentient artifact to communicate.

"Oh dear," was all the wizard could say, scooping up the injured man and rushing him inside. He needed to save his friend, and only hoped he could.

Round 1 is over! This thread is now closed for judging.

Judgment: Osiris Open rubric

Combat

Sir Artemis: 17 / 30

I liked how you feigned a handshake to create an opening in the first stages of the combat; it was a small but clever signal of intent for the rest of the fight. You fought the warrior’s game; using your bow, swords and magic at pace and whilst you never really excited in those middle-thread posts, you played to your strengths. I think I was perhaps most impressed by you at the end when you thought about using Atilla as a source of healing; a clever, original play, and one I was not expecting.

That said, I felt a lack of resourcefulness hurt both yourself and Storm in this fight. It could be a symptom of the arena, perhaps, but I felt the setting wasn’t used enough to further the fight or inject a bit of “something special” into the thread.

I felt that you took hits well. Obviously we have a situation where two very powerful characters have squared off, so I give you credit in execution for allowing some of Storm’s attacks to breach (even in part) the layers of your formidable defence. Your tactics seemed to revolve around feigns and pressure attacks and, for the most part, they seemed to be working. The only thing that hurt your score overall was perhaps having too much of a generic approach to the middle-thread posts.

Storm Veritas: 19 / 30

I liked how Storm made use of his repertoire in this fight, and found myself enjoying the introduction of nostalgic items such as the Moonwing bracer, Might of Moxxilus and the Rat (which I honestly thought wouldn’t get much of a look in). For the most part, Storm’s attacks relied on his electricity whilst his magnetism took a back seat, but the variation between this and the other items made your mid-game a lot more interesting than SirArtemis’s. I particularly liked the psychology behind using the bracer; often in threads like these it is easy to forget the mental impact that certain actions could have on their opponent.

Again, as with Artemis, I felt a lack of resourcefulness hurt both of you in this fight. Whilst you got credit for using the arena’s acid to your detriment, I felt that there was something of a missed opportunity when it came to the offensive possibilities. That said, again, it could be a symptom of the arena itself. I appreciate you can’t just pick up and throw acid, but there might have been other ways to try and force the hazards of the arena into play.

Much like Artemis, I felt that you took hits well. I give you credit for allowing Storm to get burned by the acid, although I did ponder whether or not it should have been faster acting and potentially more dangerous than it was. Your strategy seemed to be move and counter, dealing with Artemis’s pressure attacks from the back foot. I felt it worked well and you were perhaps a little stronger in this department.

Character


SirArtemis: 18 / 30

You write Artemis well. He comes across as a person who is very attentive and aware, as highlighted with his sense of Storm’s intent. You followed the “strong moral compass” line and stayed true to the character, which although aligns with Artemis’s values seemed quite abruptly placed in this thread. That Eburi just turned up seemingly out of nowhere to stop Storm seemed odd at best.
With an exception (noted below), most of the actions Artemis took seemed in keeping with his personality. He is a fast, furious fighter and clearly doesn’t suffer fools gladly. You kept dialogue and internal thoughts appropriately timed and paced.

One point of apparent contradiction was that of Judicis. You mention in your profile that the blade aligns deeply with the values that Artemis holds and helps him stay on the righteous path, yet it seemed quite happy to let Atilla be murdered to restore Artemis’s health. Perhaps I am being a little too harsh here, but one would think that those value extended beyond mankind and to all living beings. Perhaps, though, it is his inherent to its nature to keep Eburi alive? I can see the arguments on both sides, and it is just a small point, but one that caught my attention nonetheless.


Storm Veritas: 20 / 30

Storm is a character that, when the mood takes him, can provide the reader with a wealth of dimensions but when it comes down to it he is who he is. In this thread, the lightning mage seems comfortable in his own skin.

This is what I’d call a quintessential, if not slightly standard, performance. Nothing he did deviated from his character, from the characteristic blasts of that vicious lightning to the far more angry response to Artemis’s assault on Atilla. I actually found that to be quite refreshing – we have all seen Storm pissed off (default setting), but I can’t recall a time when I have seen him enraged. As always, the dialogue was colourful and entertaining whilst being proportionate to the thread.

Prose

SirArtemis: 25 / 30

Once again, you gave us a fairly solid performance in mechanics. I say fairly because I know how seriously you take your mechanics in threads, so I also know you’ll be kicking yourself a little when I tell you that one or two things crept through. In post 6, you say “How many more will succumb to his abuse power?” and I’m fairly sure you meant ”abuse of power” or something similar. There were one or two other examples where speed may have prioritised over prose, and I can understand that. For the most part, though, your mechanics were sound. Your writing was never difficult to follow, and although I felt that perhaps your posts could have done with just a little bit of fleshing out, I also understand the need to not go too over the top.

What I liked about your work was that you didn’t try to over-compensate. You weren’t overbearing or clumsy with description at all but to really put that glossy finish on your work I felt you could add a little bit more description to add those missing splashes of colour that bring scenes to life.

Storm Veritas: 27 / 30

For the most part you produced a solid and well written piece. However, bearing in mind the fine margins we are dealing with, I did have to mark you down for some minor grammatical errors. The main offender was sentence fragmentation (where a semi-colon was needed to correctly break up the sentence and give the correct context to what you were portraying) but you weren’t alone here. You were, overall, the strongest competitor in this category and your ability to write so solidly under both time and performance pressure is reflected in your score.

The one thing I liked about your writing was how you brought in an entire spectrum of literary devices to give the reader a complete picture of your story. You marry vivid description with easy to understand terminology that brings a scene to life and makes the piece very easy on the eye, but having said that there were one or two occasions where I thought you might have been a little overkill on the descriptions. That said, as the reader, I was never particularly confused as to what was going on and why or how. Your technique is well executed and well-practised, with only a minor adjustment to the score to reflect my point above.

Wildcard

SirArtemis: 6
Storm Veritas: 7

I'm awarding wildcard based on the story element of the thread. I particularly liked the way Storm adapted the Dead Pool to be a dumping ground for Brotherhood business, whereas Artemis made his tale about stopping the evil intent of the electromancer. Overall it was an entertaining battle.


Final scores and rewards


Storm Veritas: 73/100
SirArtemis: 66/100

Storm Veritas advances!

In accordance with Osiris Open rubric, both contestants receive rewards based on a score of 65. SirArtemis's GP is forfeited to the tournament pot!

Storm Veritas receives 1100 EXP and 70 GP!

SirArtemis receives 1130 EXP and forfeits 80 GP to the tournament pot!

Congratulations!