Duelist League: Prophylaxis vs Setsuna

    In the city of Alne, many have appeared for a grand ole time of an exhibition match of the famed Doctor of Tolbana, and lesser extent, Alne. On the other side of the field, the scourage of Alne, with the monsters he takes everywhere, the Necromancer Setsuna. The necromancer does appear to be a bit worn down though and the fight hasn't even started as he tosses back a cup of coffee, before getting himself ready. Smacking his face a little he steps up and draws his dagger from his inventory. Today he appears to plan to take things serious.

Now, now. The Doctor of Tolbana is now also the doctor of at least five of the eight floors of the Tower currently open to adventurers. He's a veritable Super Doctor! Or maybe he's just on his way to claiming that prestigious rank?

Regardless, he waits in the arena for his opponent. These two seem to have made a little bit of a habit of this sort of thing, and the Doctor is thankful for it. After all, with all the work he does, it's a rare thing to have the opportunity to come out and do some good old fashioned PVP that isn't eminently life-threatening. His staff is clutched in his hand, an eerie note whistling through the apertures in its structure. His other... is hidden in the pockets of his labcoat for now. He's... /probably/ taking this seriously, isn't he? "Are you ready to begin?" He asks, "I think our audience is about ready for their show."

    Setsuna looks at the doctor and nods his head as he yawns and stretches, " Yeah we can do this. I will assume you asking means you are ready for us to begin to." Crouching down a little into a horse stance as he watches the doctor. " I promise I am not going to fold like a chump, like last time. Or the time before that. " Taking a breath Setsuna begins as he grips his spear knife and slams it into the earth as it sends shockwaves through the ground. "Lets shake it up Doc!"

"I seem to remember that one time you knocked me pretty solidly onto my ass, back when I was in the middle of that trance," Prophylaxis says with a thoughtful frown. "Ah, well. Let's see if my luck holds again today. That's quite a knife, by the way. Newly forged?" The ground begins to tremble and the doctor stumbles-- before abruptly bursting into flames!

This doesn't help stumbling around at all, but what it /does/ do is massively empower the globes of fire that are already whirling around the head of his staff. They each surge with heat and light as they double in size, before being hurled directly at the necromancer's position.

    Setsuna looks at the flaming doctor, and then his knife and the doctor. "I don't think I caused that." He closes his eyes for a moment and when they are opened again there is a magical glow to them. Setsuna seems to be almost examining the doctor for a moment before he has to move quickly to avoid the fire. First time he launches himself in the air , the second orb of fire he manages to use a speed buff to actually ffall quicker, and only gets his hair singed. The third one though hits him square in the chest and he gets knocked to the ground eyes still glowing. " Well that burned."

"No, that was entirely me," Prophylaxis answers with a laugh that may have been just /slightly/ malevolent. As the ground stops trembling, he's able to once again find his footing, the lingering motes of flame still burning down around the fringes of his smile. His staff is already whirling, swinging in dynamic arcs as if stirring the very fabric of the world. Rippling waves of jet black energy course outward to weaken the necromancer further-- and to prepare for the incoming onslaught.

Another mote of flame erupts at the head of the doctor's staff. This one quickly swells to more than rival the size of its fellows, and Setsuna would be able to tell instantly that he has a Fireball incoming. But just as the blazing globe is set forth, the doctor follows up, striking the ground with the butt of his staff.

...At first, nothing seems to happen.

...Then a jet of water erupts upward from just behind the Necromancer, poised to strike simultaneously with the fireball's impact in a powerful two-pronged assault...! "Indeed! Don't worry, I'll cool you off a bit."

    Setsuna eats all of the good doctors attack to the face, well kinda, at the last moment through the fire and the burns and the screams of pain there is a dark aura that protects him for a moment before he falls to ground. "God damn that hurt a lot. I thought you were a doctor, what happened to do no harm. Is there a footnote I forgot? " Standing up on his two feet there is now a third eye symbol in between Setsuna's brow, it is like he is soaking in some of the magical damage with each hit. Kneeling he draws a wiggly line in the ground that begins to slither away to grow into a sand viper that will at least do something to the doctor, no one is walking out with a perfect win.

"Oh, I'm off the clock," Prophylaxis says, as if that's totally an excuse which explains his present level of ULTRAVIOLENCE. It really isn't. It really, really isn't. But he does seem to take note of the strange glyph that appears on his opponent's forehead. A third eye means tremendous pain is on its way, and Prophylaxis has no intention of letting it reach him without a fight. A blast of high-pressure water erupts from his feet, dodging this way and that as the viper approaches. By the time it hits him, most of its energy has been spent, but...

Gliding around like that /did/ give him an excellent vantage to hurl a barrage of fiery darts at his opponent from all angles like some kind of ~jetpack soldier.~

"Also, you signed a medical waiver when you challenged me to a duel! Ahahahaha~!"

    Setsuna does not move from the barrage of flames. It is almost like he is cursed to take the damage as he simply stands there most the magic in his eyes have faded. "I thought that waiver was to protect me from medical experimentation. " With another moment he slings his knife in the air launching a ball of lightning at the doctor, pulsing with waves of electricity to shock those near it before it explodes into a bright light to blind the doctor. " Enjoy the light show."

"I mean, what /isn't/ medical experimentation, really?" Prophylaxis muses, throwing a question out there which is very likely not intended to be answered by any sane mind. His wild smirk is summarily wiped off his face, though, when a blast of lightning and flashing, seizure-inducing light suddenly goes off right in his face. With a yelp, the doctor is sent tumbling painfully to the ground--

But soon pushes himself to his feet, his staff crackling ominously, having seemingly stolen some of the lingering electricity from Setsuna's attack. "I don't need to see," he says, pointing the staff into the sky... Which has turned some very distressing colors far too rapidly to be anything normal. "The sky does that for me."

...He says, as a bolt of lightning races down from on high, followed by another, and another, and another. The doctor blind-tosses a vial of thick liquid in the direction he feels the greatest heat. The bottle explodes as it's struck by a passing lightning bolt, spreading a viscous, flammable oil over the Necromancer as if to seal his fate...!

    Setsuna watches the lightning and a few strikes , hit around him making him question the sky sees for him a bit, before one bolt gets real close. Almost on instinct now and days he gestures wide arms as he raises a spherical orb of water from the ground around him. The lightning strikes it and while some of teh shock passes through , most of it is routed through the shield into the ground. However that poison brew does flow through the shield and he can't get away from it, simply as he drops the shield he gets soaked in that concoction and it burns and itches. " If this is that pumpkin poison, I swear!" Without even waiting a summoning circle appears under him and from the ground rises up two skeleton minions. One of those minions runs straight in to strike the doctor while the other stays back for Setsuna to use as a shield.

"God, no, I'm not a /monster/," Prophylaxis answers with a mildly offended sniffle. "Any poison I use on friends is guaranteed to only last for a short period of time! And probably won't kill you." Prophylaxis seems thoughtful at this, as if considering whether or not he just told a lie. While he's lost in his reverie, a skeletal soldier sallies forth to beat him with a sword! The doctor clicks his tongue as he's caught off-guard by the first stroke, only to send himself flying out of range with a quickly conjured pillar of stone underfoot. Rolling to his feet, the doctor... Finally removes his hand from his pocket? Or maybe it's always been out, ever since things started getting heated. One way or another, there's a new, unfamiliar movement from that limb-- a tendril snakes out, whip-like, as he sweeps his arm towards his opponent. The metallic tendril jabs a needle into the necromancer's arm... And delivers a potent toxin...

...Based on vampire blood...

...That causes both severe pain and rapid bleeding.

"Good," he says, satisfied, "It works! Now hold still, I'll cauterize the wound."

With a fireball.

Because of course there's a fireball.

tSetsuna wasn't sure what to expect from the tendril for a moment until well it stabs him and as he begins to bleed from the wound and he grips his arm. "No thanks, this isn't my first shot. " Setsuna move the other minion into the fireball as he runs away , only getting hit by some of the rubbler from the explosion of the skeletal minion. Stumbling to one knee Setsuna was feeling a mix of exhaustion and weakness but he doesn't give up as he places his hands on the ground and pushes up a giant earth pillar at the doctor.

"Hopefully it won't be your last either!" Prophylaxis answers, the tendril whipping back into some kind of strange apparatus mounted around his wrist. "Still, your resilience has been most impressive, Setsuna. Let's keep going, shall we--" A stone pillar erupts from underneath him, slamming into the doctor's gut with a solid crack of bone against boulder. It's only quick thinking and the summoning of his own stone platform to land safely ontop of that saves him from suffering a painful fall.

"Not bad," Prophylaxis murmurs, before raising his staff again toward an angry sky. "One more time, then. Come, lightning!"

Lightning comes. It comes in great quantities indeed.

    Setsuna shakes his head as he knows what is coming now. "So all I have to do..." Setsuna coughs and blood comes up, the poison status and the bleeding status giving the system interesting ways to emulate it, before he continues talking, "is move faster then lightning strikes." A aura of darkness encompasses him as he begins to move on the battle field like he wasn't a mage, but some form of hand to hand fighter. Foot holds in the earth seem to be right where he needs to shift movement away from the bolt of lightning at splits seconds, he even seems to change direction in mid air a few time. When all the dust clears there is Setsuna still standing, his hp bar barely having moved. " Ok time to do this." Setsuna takes a step forward, the damage over time ticks forward and Setsuna falls to the ground with a thud. Weakly he speaks up, " I should of let you cauterize that wound."

Prophylaxis watches with rapt attention as Setsuna dodges every single one of his lightning strikes. By the end of it, the doctor can only nod in tacit approval of the necromancer's performance. "Well done. Very well done! Now..."

...As Setsuna topples over from accumulated damage over time.

"...Ah."

The Doctor rides his stone pillar down, the monumental structure melting away into dust and rubble. He whips that strange tendril out again, but this time it injects not poison, but a strong dose of healing potion. "Hah, looks like it worked a little too well. Perhaps you should have, but then you might have bled internally anyway. How are you feeling? Any side-effects? That was an interesting technique you displayed there, at the end. That strange dark aura, I mean."

    Setsuna sits up slowly as the health potion stabilizies him, and he moves to retrieve some water to sip. A very long sip. Taking amoment more he shakes his head, " No side effects, that I can tell. " Setsuna seems to still be a bit out of breath, rapid heart movement, if anything the doctor could tell he was basically pushed to some limits with that last move. " You need to learn to focus your lightning, randomness is good or bad. Make it a cage instead that tightens in to the target." It is Setsunas only critique as he sips more water before he seems to finally catch his breath. " That aura was something I am working on, at the moment it is an inefficent mess, however it did let me dodge lightning, so can't complain. "

"Hmn, well, when it's ready, you'll have to show me how it's done. Maybe in exchange I might teach you one of my tricks?" The doctor smiles and nods at the revelation of No Severe Side Effects. Good! It's based on /vampire blood/, so anything that might indicate horrible vampirification would be... a problem. "The randomness is a feature, not a bug," he explains, then. "Technically they're all aimed, but the point is to keep the enemy frantically dodging the lightning while I do... other things." Prophylaxis gestures, his weird cyber-tendril wriggling out of what appears to be a gauntlet, as if to indicate his meaning.

    Setsuna nods his head, " Yeah we can work something out once I have it all figured out, where the heart doesn't feel like its going to explode." Yes a lack of heart explosion will be good. "Either way we have a tower climb son. I should go see the king and asking him about the floor. The eerie quite feel of it being empty and peaceful bothers the hell out of me. " Setsuna tries to stand and his body decides he needs a few more minutes, yep would definately need to wait for his body to recover more.

"At least the locals are fairly nice," Prophylaxis says with a shrug. "I'm betting there's a whole bunch of underground monsters just waiting for us to activate the boss, and then we'll all be screwed. You might want to ask the landers up there what to expect, too. Might help contextualize whatever Gilgamesh has to say."