Aaaaaaaargh! [Open]

[seesbosscrotch]

Through the City paced a blood elf paladin.

Well. Not paced... more like rampaged. Sword in his hands, the sin'dorei stalked darkly down the more crowded streets fronted by damaged building, walking a good sight faster than a normal constitutional should warrant.

More ominously, his face was a blank mask, but his actions spoke of absolute fury at best. Where a piece of rubble or an abandoned object stood in his way, he hacked at it with his sword until it collapsed into chunks. Where an innocent piece of structure stood out in some way along the crumbled buildings, he paused a second to gather holy energy in his hands, then with a gesture slammed it violently into that object, more often that not causing it to collapse.

In short, the paladin was not happy.

Comments

[zombiewolf]

Perhaps that rampaging blood elf paladin should watch out for random bystanders before he goes slinging holy energy around.

At least, that was Kyladriss's opinion as she rounded a corner and narrowly escaped excruciating contact with his holy magic. She jumped to the side, scrambling out of the way of the collapsing rubble, and then whirled on the paladin with a snarl. Her runeblade was out the moment she perceived an attack, and now she struggled to control her impulse to attack. Stacy prevented crew members from damaging each other, but this was the city, and the city was full of blind spots.

Her glowing blue eyes were fixed warily on the sindorei. Battle lust sang through her veins - what was left of them. If he wanted a fight... well, Kyladriss was all too happy to oblige.

[seesbosscrotch]

Hey, the random bystanders are perfectly safe so long as he doesn't target them. Exorcism hits what he's pointing at and only that!

Mar paused mid-whack, sword hovering over a big chunk of stone and mortar as he stared in shock at the runeblade. For a wild instant he thought... but no, his sister didn't quite have that body hair problem. "I don't think I've met you," he said, voice casual but wavering from sudden emotional swings more jarring than a goblin trike with the wrong fuel mixture.

[zombiewolf]

Kyladriss didn't lower her blade. If anything, when the paladin's attention shifted to her, she tightened her grip. One ear turned around backward and some of her snarl vanished, but that was it.

"Kyladriss of the Ebon Blade," she said by way of introduction. All of her death knight's instincts were screaming for blood and suffering, and the worgen part of her felt distinctly cornered even if she did have plenty of escape routes. She shoved them down ruthlessly. So far, he had yet to attack her. She had no personal argument with the sindorei.

[seesbosscrotch]

"Maridian. Sin'dorei, Blood Knight, Crusader -- and so it goes, you know how Azeroth is." For his own part, Mar had absolutely no quarrels with any race of the Alliance, though he had to admit he'd barely dealt with the worgen (outside of Shadowfang Keep, which didn't count).

Still, he knew death knights, and could guess at the body language. "Would a duel help you work out some of the tension?" he asked. "You know, the kind where we don't kill each other. You look like you could use a good fight."

[zombiewolf]

The way her lips curled back from her teeth probably looked like a snarl to anyone but another worgen - the smile was cold and deadly. "Yes," she growled softly, and summoned her bone shield. The prospect of a decent fight soothed some of the constant rage. She was not trying to kill this man, she reminded herself firmly.

Hopefully she could keep both of her natures in check.

[seesbosscrotch]

"Looks like we share a hobby," he said in mild amusement, as he slid his sword back into his pack, then drew his mace and unholstered his shield. "But I think you'll find that no one takes a hit to the face like I do!"

With a swift gesture, he granted himself the Blessing of Kings, then imbued his weapon with the Seal of Truth. Holy light shimmered around his feet as his Devotion Aura ignited.

"Thank you for your patience!" he said, then beckoned her onward with his mace as he hefted his shield.

[zombiewolf]

She waited patiently for him to switch weapons, inwardly pleased. He would not have a chance against her without that shield, but with them evenly matched, it should be a good fight.

Kyladriss opened by summoning Death and Decay at their feet, and then came at him sword first. Despite reminding herself that it was a friendly duel and the object was not to kill the paladin, her runeblade sang with savage delight. She charged her sword with a blood rune and struck at his heart.

[seesbosscrotch]

He forgot what resource allocation Death and Decay took, off the top of his head, but he was sure dropping a Consecrate would punish him more than it did her. As she charged forward, he nimbly sidestepped the blow as part of one seamless burst of motion that carried him past her. Twisting as he ran, he struck twice with his mace at her side and back -- the first a normal swing, though the seal still gave the weapon holy force, the second one sheathed in holy energy.

The force of the second strike spun him as he hopped slightly up to deliver it, so that the momentum of the speed that he reached in his pursuit of justice carried him out of the damned circle on the ground, though his legs still throbbed with the pain of the malevolence he had been wading through.

[zombiewolf]

One couldn't dodge a strike from behind, but Kyladriss twisted to take the blow on her shoulder, where it clanged off one of her pauldrons. The holy energy behind the second strike made her flinch away.

She was fast for such a tall, hulking figure, but he had distance on her. That wouldn't do. She called a frost rune out of the air and pointed at him, conjuring Chains of Ice to slow him down so she could catch up, swinging her runeblade again. She needed to score to build her blood shield. The bone shield would only last so much longer.

[seesbosscrotch]

Mar quickly lifted his shield to absorb some of the blow's force, though the power that raced down his arm still made him grunt against the pain. Slowed as he was, he couldn't keep backing up as he intended to lure her further from Death and Decay, so for the moment he stood his ground.

One swift motion of his mace brought a hammer of light descending on her head in Judgement, then he swiftly struck with the weapon again, a normal blow with no magic behind it but the seal.

[zombiewolf]

The hammer knocked her silly for a few seconds, allowing that blow to impact. Thankfully her blood shield absorbed some of the blow and what was left of the bone shield took the rest. She came out of the daze winded but uninjured.

The slowing effect of her frost rune was wearing off. She didn't want him getting away from her, so Kyladriss swiped at him with her claws. Even if the blow didn't land, she sent an outbreak of disease toward him. She charged her blade with a second blood rune - her last for the moment - and swung at him again. It was reckless, bent only on hitting him. Without her magical shields she was vulnerable.

[seesbosscrotch]

The claws lashed past all his defenses and struck home, punching through the weak spot at his shoulder joint. Disease, of course, he had little chance to resist, but he paid it no attention even as his blood surged hot and cold both at once.

With his movement slowly freeing up, he sidestepped the sword blow, then lashed out at her with his mace in another holy strike, stepping backwards immediately after to draw her further away from her own unholy circle. His follow-up attack came not from his weapon, but his shield, which he sent flying through the air, straight for her head, with a sudden, violent motion.

[zombiewolf]

Kyladriss didn't fight with a shield, so that move caught her by surprise, snapping her head to the side. In the back of her mind her runeblade screamed for his blood, and she shook her head to clear it.

She charged her blade with two runes and struck back at him, intending to heal the damage he'd done and rebuild her blood shield. Each strike built up her runic power, and the blade glowed sickly.

I'm honestly rolling his avoidance on d100s. (And Grand Crusader, which refuses to proc.)

[seesbosscrotch]

Luck or skill was with the paladin; he struck aside the blade with a sharp rap of his mace against the flat as his shield shot back onto his arm. In a swift motion, he hacked at her with another holy blow as he darted forward, just as he had in the beginning of the fight, jockeying to reach her defenseless backside once more.

[zombiewolf]

Kyladriss was having none of that. She let him drive her backward, turning to face him for every move he made toward her back. The force of that holy strike from before made her wary, and she knocked his mace aside with her sword like he'd done to her a second before.

She couldn't simply use runes one after another. Even if her head still throbbed from that shield hit, she had to wait for them to recharge - so it was time to use up some of the charge her blade had built. As quickly as she'd been backing away before, she now turned that defense into offense, using quick strikes charged with runic power to try and batter Maridian back into the fading Death and Decay.

[seesbosscrotch]

Damn it, and he'd been so close too! Her first hit caught him completely off-guard; it slammed into his armor, not penetrating the metal but certainly transmitting enough force to leave some serious bruising on his side. The second one he caught on his shield, the third he parried as he stepped to the side, refusing to step back into the corrupted ground. In that same moment he spread his shield hand, and from it holy light erupted outwards, a bright bolt of it shooting straight towards the worgen's chest.

...Not his strongest attack, but hey, better than a wasted cooldown. As soon as he got his hand back solidly on his shield's grip, he struck again with a holy-swathed mace, the seal's energies still burning brightly both on it and within her, where the holy energy continued to burn after his earlier hits.

[zombiewolf]

Kyladriss didn't think she would ever get used to the way the Light felt now - his hit startled a yelp out of her because even through her armor, that holy magic hurt.

Of course, that just made her angrier, and her runes were recharged. She struck back savagely - he'd scored two hits in the space of a few seconds, and if this death strike landed she would drain his energy and heal the damage he'd done. He managed to stay out of the blight on the ground until it dissipated. Kyladriss didn't lay another one; she needed all her runes to defeat him. She called another bone shield in case the hit didn't land.

[seesbosscrotch]

The Death Strike clanged into his shield, though the unholy energies infusing it ignored that hunk of metal to race through the paladin and inflict agony upon him. He ignored the pain as he'd ignored all the rest of the blows this far.

Good thing she got that healing and that shield both together, because all the holy power he'd built up through his blows surged into his shield as he drove it forward. The Light gave his blow the strength of a Titan as he smashed it into her.

[zombiewolf]

It took what she'd built of her blood shield with it, although thankfully the bone shield still had a couple charges left. Kyladriss snarled, retaliating with another Death Strike as she quickly thought over her options.

She could not incapacitate him, not like his Hammer of Justice could her - but she could prevent that from happening again. She concentrated for a brief moment on the energies of frost, and ice rimed her fur as he blood froze in her veins. With Icebound Fortitude up, he could not stun her now. She had one blood rune left before they needed to recharge - she used it not to empower her weapon but to heal herself, a red, glowing sketch of it appearing in the air above her head.

[seesbosscrotch]

Well, let's take stock. He'd taken less damage, she'd healed a lot of damage. So far so good -- it was in his best interests to prolong this. It was for her benefit, after all.

Mar wasn't too quick on the ol' aitch-oh-jay as a rule, though; he was a cooldown-hoarder. His next strike was another swift blow with crusader's strength behind it.