The sixth fight of Round One, for the [Magus Ferox] BattleArena .
Back to the Standings.

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A rythmic, heart-stirring beat pounds through the great hall that makes the arena. It echoes off of immeasurably huge collumns that stretch into darkness above, connecting somewhere unseen with the ceiling. The beat pounds out from a gargantuan drum that leans on the wall that makes the end of the hall. It's surrounded by barbaric ceremonial artifacts; furs from various arctic and tundric creatures, offerings of valuable beverage and food, decorative pieces of armor and weapons. Thellorne holds the immense drumstick that is used to beat the ceremonial Wartime Drum with both hands, swinging it with a happy grin on his face as he waits for his opponent to appear.

A slight murmuring hum begins to issue from the opposing end of the arena, peaking with each beat of the massive drum, fading with the upstroke of Thellorne's heavily built arms. It is as constant as the mighty War Drum, but less pronounced, fading and returning like some wayward storm of bees upon a field run rampant with wildflowers... but the source does not reveal itself.
Eventually, the beat slows as Thellorne's opponent does not appear, each stoke of the mighty beat a few moments after the last. Ans as the beat slows, so does the constant hum... until a series of many can be heard. Then, appears a flash of silver, a flash of crimson, a flash of brown... all moving swiftly back and forth.
As the beat slows to a stop, so appears the form of Eis, a thick lather on his feet, and twin blades clutched in his hands, spinning and cutting at the air...

Noticing that his opponent has finally arrived, Thellorne suddenly picks up the pace of the beat, building it to a crescendo and making it more intricate. Just as it seems that the drum might explode from the shockwaves of its own bass, the beat stops. The sudden silence is eerie, broken only by Thellorne's footsteps as he walks down the steps leading to the drum. Reaching the bottom, he stops and plants his feet widely, looking down the hall to Eis' person. Calmly reaching back and releasing Ilemunti, the Axe of the Elements, from its strap on his back. Its pole falls into his open hand, and he grips it tightly. Raising it to his shoulder, he pulls a few fingers through his beard absentmindedly and nods a silent hello to his competitor.

Eis plants foot firmly in front of him, and comes to a rapid stop, a cloud of dust lifting off the ground in a wall of haze behind him. His twin swords are clutched tightly in his hands, and a smile creases his face as he eyes his competedor. With a slight movement, he slides his right foot back, scratching the hardpacked dirt with a soft-soled boot, and planting it firmly. His body faces his opponent with his left shoulder the most open target... revealing the long crossbow mounted on his back.
Eis looks squarely at Thellorne, and smiles a bit wider, beckoning with    steel...

Wordlessly, Thellorne takes a stance. Planting his feet a few inches outside of shoulder's width, he takes his axe from his shoulder with both hands on the pole, flipping it a little to bring it to a ready position with some style. It twirls broadly, and winds up standing vertical, close to his body, still held by both hands. The axe glows softly, eager to begin the battle, and starts humming softly with the magic that courses through it. Thellorne's eyes narrow. "Come," he says.

Eis launches himself effortlessly, landing lightly some ten feet to Thellnore's left side on one foot, twisting his body and launching again. He flies face first at the dwarf, his body parallel with the ground and his knives held before equally parallel to his body, one slightly to the fore in a minimal defensive position.

Thellorne's stance hasn't left him helpless. He nimbly hops bacward just as Eis flies past him, and swings his axe through the air to send a strong shockwave toward his opponent that will knock him to the ground.

Eis flies at an odd angle, facefirst towards the ground. He reaches down with his left hand and flips himself so his fly before him. Unfortunately, he had still been gripping his sword, and suffers a deep laceration on his upper arm as his weapon skitters away.
Still flying, he hits the wall with his feet, taking the impact with bent legs... he rebounds lightly, gaining height. With rapid movement, he throws the short sword at his opponent, and unclips his loaded crossbow, bringing it to his shoulder. About four yards above Thellorne, Eis looses the armor-piercing bolt, aimed at the dwarf's upturned face.

Just as his opponent rebounds off of the wall and into the air, Thellorne kneels and slams the pole of his axe into the ground. A shockwave ripples through the ground around him, and a dome of sparking, buzzing electricity rises from around him. It envelops the dwarf quickly, and he closes his eyes as he continues the chanting required to keep the solid dome of lightning in existence. Just in time, the bolt shot of Eis' crossbow deflects uselessly off of the dome's bluish exterior, creating a loud, sharp buzzing noise and bright flash of electricity. The short sword does the same, with a stronger reaction, and flips away to skitter across the ground a good distance away.

Eis shrieks in alarm as his body flies towards the wall of energy, there being noplace to gain purchase anywhere near his abnormaly spry self. In desperation he flings his hands to his face, and pummels into the electric shield.
Then there is nothing, only the loud crack of the universe compensating for the sudden loss of matter. The dome flickers absently, discharging with a whif of fried ozone... but there is no charred carcass, nor is there any evidence that the halfling ever existed.
Until, that is, he reappears just in front of the dwarf, inside the field.
According to the laws of Applied Magickal Physics, subsection sixteen (teleportation theory), partition one-hudred twenty-seven (velocity and teleportation) cross referenced with partition three hundred and ninety-four (Newton's theorm), an object that is traveling at velocity (X) at a certain heading (Y1), and teleports at a point in space (Z1), with invariably appear at another given point in space (Z2). The object will, according to the aforementioned laws, reappear at the given spatial point (Z2), maintaining the same velocity (X), and traveling at parallel heading.
Eis is a prime example of this. After his sudden reappearance in the bubble, he flies at the ground, absorbing the shock evenly with arms like springs, releasing them just as evenly while holding his legs rod straight, well aimed, and pointed at Thellnore's chin.