Duelist League:Prophylaxis vs Setsuna

    The sun shines down on the training grounds of the Scale Emblem Alliance's newly redone training grounds. The last wave had really beaten the place up so it had been out of commission till only recently and it appears it had been decided to break in the training ground by hosting a duel of the duelist league. The officials and referee stands to the side as Setsuna enters the marked out arena. The necromancer hesitates on the sideline speaking to a cloaked figure and being rather stern with the person before moving to the field. He seems a bit nervous as he keeps glancing to the cloak figure but takes a deep breath and awaits his opponent.

They really should do more for Castle Reach. Ostensibly the place was supposed to be Zorin's to manage and build up, but his recent duties have taken up far too much of his time for that. Maybe Prophylaxis should push the job onto some other up-and-coming interested individual? Though with Karluin's reclamation in the works, Castle Reach's utility as a fortified position is somewhat less valuable. Maybe they should think about pivoting to make it some kind of... embassy, or point-of-sale for goods harvested or traded from the Tower?

Well. That's something for later.

Prophylaxis enters the arena opposite from Setsuna and his mysterious cloaked acquaintance. The doctor of Tolbana quirks a brow and asks, "Do you have some pressing business, Setsuna? It seems that you have someone waiting for our duel to finish."

    Setsuna chuckles and shakes his head, " No no , just my friend was giving me pointers. You see he has some experience with fighting and didn't want me to lose my head is all. " The summoner retrieves his staff from his inventory as he continues to talk, " I told him that this would probably be over in a few minutes given how last time went. So really I am just nervous cause he was nervous I was nervous. Are you nervous?" Swinging his arms back and forth he streches out, " So how are you today doc? Doing ok? Do anything fun? Having a good whatever today is?"

"I see," Prophylaxis answers with a shrug. "Well, as long as you're not going to tear up another workshop with more undead grunties, I'm sure it's fine. Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help, however."

The bell is rung! Prophylaxis wastes no time. He is nowhere near as fatigued as the last time they did this, and his opening move is to conjure a cloud of flashing electrical fuzz right over Setsuna's head... Before following up by conjuring a series of SPECTRAL SCALPELS to hurl directly into his center of mass! "For what it's worth, I'm much more awake today than I was before."

    The necromancer was seeing stars, and spots and he hadn't even been hit yet. Damn paparazzi! He tries to just blindly run but ends up running head first into the scalpels, getting cut up in the process but he keeps running. "Oh come on, it wasn't really even a workshop. It was one of the rooms here barely restored!" His hand glows with dark energy as he charges straight towards the Cait Sith now, his eyes at least done with the spots before just lightly trying to touch the doctor's nose, however he would probably be content to touch Prophylaxis anywhere. The dark energy gone the moment after the touch, or is it. " Glad to see you don't plan to make this to easy. You need to work on your small talk though, I asked you all those questions and not a single answer."

"I had thought that was just nervous stammering because of the extremely suspicious person in the cloak talking into your ear and probably threatening to kill your dog or something if you didn't do what they asked," Prophylaxis answers, utterly deadpan despite Setsuna playing GOT YER NOSE with his... nose. It doesn't go *honk* but it certainly does feel weird getting a faceful of dark energy. "Smells like blackberries," the doctor comments.

And then suddenly he is /extremely swole./

Or rather, his muscles just seem to bulge a little bit as he draws power up through his legs and into his body. He hurls another set of those phantasmal scalpels at Setsuna, before...

"FIREBALL." Yep! There it is! That telltale sphere of orange-red light that is his favorite, most beloved spell in all the world sails directly for Setsuna's face in a cruel (and possibly /way/ too overkill) answer to his own noseboop. "Besides, it's a legitimate concern! Having undead running around on a rampage every other week would be terrible for our public image!"

    Setsuna was prepared for the returning scalpels, everyone alwways got mad when he booped their nose so it was common that he would end up expecting some form of atack. So he brings out a wall of earth to shield him and laughs , " Try harder. Also what do you mean, vampire carnivals are all the rage lately I hear. " Setsuna mutters something behind his shield and forms a ball of lightning to the tip of his staff. As he stands up over the shield he tosses it at the doctor and sees the Fireball. It did feel hot out here now that he thought about it. As he gets knocked across the ground and well its a long way across the ground. His cloaked friend tries to step in but Setsuna casts a glare and then stands up. " Ok but really how many more of those tricks do you got."

"Is /that/ what all the hubub of the missing persons was all about?" Prophylaxis asks, standing as resolute as earth even amidst the flashing, dazzling lights popping directly into his field of view. "I had suspected there was some kind of weirdness going on there, but with everything in the Tower, I've been too busy to deal with it myself." Those mines, roads and so on aren't just going to coordinate their /own/ construction after all! He looks toward the source of movement over in the stands, but can't see further than an arm's length in front of his face. How awful.

"There are no tricks here," he answers, turning toward the source of Setsuna's voice. "Unless you count 'mastery of the elemental arts' a trick. As it turns out, I'm significantly more formidable when I'm /not/ falling over myself with fatigue!" He lifts his staff-- and strikes the earth! The ground under Setsuna's feet would begin to rumble before /rupturing/, a line of hexagonal stone pillars shooting out of the earth between the temporarily stunned doctor and the mouthy necromancer!

He makes a sound of vague discomfort, then, and quietly peels a cloud of dark magic off his face before it can take root /too/ deeply.

    Setsuna watches the earth erupt and try to punch him and he manages to raise a shield of air infront of him, however it's shoddy and weak and obvious that Setsuna does have enough clarity of mind to maintain it. Maybe it had something to do with his friend or maybe , just MAYBE it was his entire body had a horrible sunburn. Setsuna drops to his knee as he takes the attack and just kneels there for a moment. That is likely an in game broken rib. It's gonna ache for the next few days. However the mages in the area could tell, as the summoner begins to pull magic around him into his own body, a glowing eye appearing on his head. One thing though, Setsuna does appear to have shut up.

Prophylaxis remembers /that/ trick. And in fact--

"I looked into that spell, myself. I appreciate you making me aware of its phenomenal utility," the doctor intones, as an identical glowing eye appears upon *his* forehead. The earth continues to rumble unabated, as the magus conjures yet another manifestation of tellurian magic. "Yield," he commands-- as a series of stone pillars erupt from the ground /around/ the necromancer, just thick enough to act as prison bars...

...As a /massive/ pillar begins descending with incredible speed from /above./

    Setsuna stands up slowly the sign of the third eye still on his head as he takes a deep breath, " Not yet. " Raising a rock shield infront of him the pillar still forces it's way through and a dark aura wraps around Setsuna as he catches the pillar with his bare hands and stops it. " I may not be the best duelist. However I don't think I would be satisified with not even pinging your HP. " His mind begins to race for options but his options were limited and unfortunately, it appears Prophylaxis had the high ground.

"I commend your resolve," Prophylaxis says with a genuine smile. "I was never a PvPer, myself. Not a serious one, at least. But the experience I've gained elsewhere has taught me valuable lessons that are surprisingly applicable to this sort of thing." Again his staff strikes the ground. Again, the ground around Setsuna begins to rumble.

But this time, he'd feel the temperature abruptly /plummet/, as if something had sucked all the warmth and comfort out of the world.

...And /then/ another pillar shoots up... from underneath him. Trapped between one falling pillar and one rising, can Setsuna survive to make good on his threat...!?

    Setsuna feels the temperature begin to drop and works quickly as he raises his shield of rock infront of him. However unlike his previous walls of stone this one has the presence of darkness mixed in as Setsuna pours the remnents of his dark aura into the shield. It almost holds but it still gets through and knocks Setsuna to the ground. "Not done yet." His fist tightening around his staff he spins around and tosses a rather large bolt of raw arcane energy. Setsuna had to have been building this up for a while.

Oho, so that /wasn't/ enough to finish the fight? Prophylaxis seems impressed! And maybe just a bit surprised. He lifts his staff to conjure a wall of arcane force-- but Setsuna's shot tears through it! A wave of dark energy blasts the magus back several feet! But...

Well.

"Hey Setsuna," he says, "You should watch where you step."

A snake-headed vine abruptly goes *chomp* on the Necromancer's ankle.

...As a pattern of strobing, flashing lights ignite right in Setsuna's face when he goes to look down.

HOW RUDE!!

    The snake vine bites, the flashing lights go off and it appears thats it really. Setsuna over reacts, leaps back and rolls over one of the 100's of rock like magical constructs littering the ground that hasn't despawned. Falling over he just lays there. "Ok so I'm just gonna lay here now. Fights over. How bout we both agree I win?" The referee has other intentions though, " The winner is PROPHYLAXIS!" The scale members cheer and Setsuna just stands here as he cast a glance to his cloaked buddy then back up to the sky. Really all he could see was sparks.

    And that's that. Vengeance has never felt so sweet. Prophylaxis toward the downed necromancer and slooooowly smiles, "Oho. I believe that I had a few experiments I wanted to perform in the event of my victory, didn't I?" He looms, casting a terribly ominous shadow...!

Before reaching down with an outstretched hand that disguises a *MEDICAL INSPECTION* of the Doctoral variety. Don't think that he didn't notice that weird pallor to Setsuna's face...! "Don't worry, I decided against them. For now, we should go tend to those wounds, eh?"

    Setsuna is in perfect health, minus the lack of HP, or the poison from the snake vine or well the burns or...ok there was a lot wrong. Setsuna takes a deepbreath as he takes any help offered to stand and gets himself up on his feet and looks over at the cloaked figure and motions. "Well you are the doctor, where to? Do you have a office here or you going to make a hurt man walk all the way to Tolbana?" The cloaked figure would approach but say nothing , just standing there.

"It's fine, I can perform field medicine here if I need to. Sit down in the stands, I'll start dressing your wounds" Prophylaxis answers, conjuring a collection of MEDICAL TOOLS from the depths of his inventory. "So, who is your cloaked friend exactly? Someone you met at the VAMPIRE CARNIVAL or something?"

    "No sadly, she turned out to be a blood sucking fiend like all the women I fall for," Setsuna says as he lets the doctor do his job and then smiles at him. "Come now good friend, are you telling me you don't know. After all we wouldn't want undead just runninng around wild." Hint hint hint hint, Setsuna says with eyebrow raising and head motioning. It was an obvious answer given the cloak seeming to cover any indication of the person. "Or did you think he was some sith lord?"

"I hope you didn't contract anything contagious," Prophylaxis sighs as he finishes winding a set of bandages. Setsuna's HP bar creeps steadily upward as he does so. "I have no idea what a 'sith lord' is," he says, then shrugs. "Well, as long as you keep him under control, there's no issue. I /was/ wondering why you hadn't summoned anything during the fight."