Sword and Snow

As it turned out, the trial by combat turned out to be somewhat mundane. After what felt like a desperate struggle on the side of the Dragon Peak, the individual duels in the more controlled, even space were almost boring.

Emery wouldn’t have called them all one-sided, or anything quite that heavy-handed, but they were less exciting somehow. Most likely, it was the dour atmosphere that pervaded the whole thing.

Terrane and Ieji were the first ones called. Their fight was one-sided. Something about Terrane must have set Ieji on edge, because Emery could not remember ever seeing Ieji approach a fight so ruthlessly from the get go before. Once the two combatants were in place in the training room, the dragons, Emery, Avuri, and her cousins took up residence along a wall to spectate. And in Eiry’s case, act as judge.

As soon as the beginning of the fight was called, Ray dropped the restraints that he had placed on Terrane. The man’s eyes were wild and he looked like the few days spent physically locked inside his body by Ieji’s poisons had broken him even further than before. He immediately created a stone sword for himself from his Qi and charged at Ieji.

Ieji’s first move was to push Qi into his fear aura. For most of the onlookers, it was the first time that they got to experience what it was like when Ieji was actively wielding it. Even knowing that there wasn’t anything to really be afraid of in the room wasn’t necessarily enough to do anything about it. Physical symptoms of fear took hold regardless of your mental state; faster heart beat, cold sweat, mild difficulty breathing.

Emery watched as everyone near her shifted uncomfortably immediately. Cove pressed a hand against his chest, clearly trying to focus on breathing. Emery smiled weakly, knowing exactly what that felt like. There was nothing quite like an Ieji-induced panic attack.

Terrane, however, didn’t seem to be much affected by the aura. Which, Emery knew, wasn’t entirely uncommon. Many of the induced symptoms were easily lost in a fight to begin with, or confused with adrenaline and the like.

But when Ieji flipped their switch on, no one missed it. The induced fear effect just lifted suddenly, as Ieji focused all their intent on Terrane. The man stopped in the middle of his charge, looking confused and disoriented. Ieji, essentially being a well trained assassin, ended the fight before Terrane recovered his awareness. It was quick and efficient and vaguely terrifying.

Once the fight was over, Ieji made to slink off to a far part of the wall, avoiding the group - most of whom were still shifting awkwardly and looking nervous.

“Ieji.” Emery called. When they looked her way, she motioned them over with a hand. Ieji obeyed, and turned to approach their sister, and the group. Once they were close enough, Emery slung an arm around their shoulder and gave them a squeeze. “You did good.”

Ieji’s body relaxed in her grip a little bit, some of the stress and worry leaving them. They took a deep breath and simply stood there for the moment. No one else moved or said anything for a while, as they all were trying to recover from the sudden panic attacks.

Together, Ray and Vyne opted to clear the stage for the next fight, which would be Avuri and Quarris.

Similarly to the previous bout, once Avuri was in position, Quarris was brought out to the training room. She sneered when she saw her opponent, but said nothing. Whether she was concentrating on the coming fight or just deciding to keep her mouth shut was anyone’s guess. Avuri, for her part, simply waited for the start of the fight to be called. When it was, and the bindings holding Quarris fell away, both women started up techniques.

Quarris quickly crafted her sand-stone armor and conjured her first orbit of stones. Her armor even created a makeshift left arm for her, as it was still missing. Avuri, drawing on a little of Emery’s Qi from the sidelines, let out a massive burst of cold. Almost instantaneously, she had two Blizzard Dragons, eight of her Snowflakes, and a layer of her armor in place. The burst of cold left a thin layer of frost across the ground as well as the walls, covering the entire room - just like her Domain.

Quarris quickly found herself on the receiving side of both Dragons. Avuri held nothing back; Emery could feel it. She let Avuri draw on their combined well of Qi as Avuri saw fit. And as the Dragons hurtled toward Quarris, Emery knew two things.

First, despite looking the same as always, these two Dragons were far more destructive than the last time Quarris had seen the attack. The way that Avuri bundled up the technique and contained it in the shape was really quite a masterful skill, but it was more than that. From the outside, it was hard to tell how strong the attack was until it was upon you.

Second, she knew that Avuri was far from finished. She could feel her wife scraping together more Qi for some kind of follow-up and the Dragons were - well, she wouldn’t say a distraction given how powerful they each were. They were intended to buy her some prep time though.

Their fight wasn’t long or as drawn out at the previous one against Quarris, and it was entirely at long range. Rather than the more traditional Cultivator style of a duel that grew in intensity as it went on, Quarris and Avuri sprinted out of the gate at full throttle. Avuri’s initial Dragon assault chewed through Quarris’ armor with the added power, leaving the woman’s left side ravaged. The arm that her armor had provided was gone, and her torso looked like it had been attacked by animals, with scratches and chunks removed by the wind and sharp ice.

Quarris hadn’t been idle, though. She launched a few attacks of her own, most of which were caught by Avuri’s flakes. But even with Emery’s warning beforehand, Avuri took a costly minute to adjust to Quarris’ hidden attacks. She had a small hole drilled through her left thigh by one of the projectiles, and took a glancing blow to her ribcage before she fully adjusted to it.

Emery’s warning did pay off, though, as without it the first two shots may have ended the fight. And it seemed like Quarris was relatively out of tricks after that. She continued launching attacks with her orbiting stones - which now consisted of four orbits - but Avuri’s Snowflakes were able to intercept those shots easily while she narrowly avoided the occasional hidden projectile.

It was clear that Quarris wanted to close the distance and get in Avuri’s face, but was being cowed by the Blizzard Dragons. Avuri had three of them flying around her like bodyguards, and after the damage that the first one had inflicted, Quarris was more cautious than she had been in their first scuffle.

It also gave Avuri time to prepare a combination attack that would essentially be her attempt to end it. With another quick pull on Emery’s Qi to supplement her own, Avuri sent out a sharp blast of icy cold wind. It wasn’t dangerous per se, but she needed the momentary lapse in Quarris’ attacks to complete her strategy. In the second it took Quarris to regain herself after the biting wind, Avuri had set up three more Dragons.

And all six were well on their way to bear down on Quarris. She panicked, thickened her armor and gathered two more orbits of stone. As she did so, Avuri took full advantage of the momentary slip in concentration and trapped Quarris in a Chilling Cage. The woman’s Domain, even when she wasn’t actively pushing with it, wasn’t nearly as small as Leon’s, so the cage was much bigger and would typically be less of a threat to her.

But Avuri had managed to time it perfectly to trap all six of her Blizzard Dragons in there with her. Quarris screamed in anger and lashed out at the Dragons, but Avuri trusted in her technique - especially when she fed such ridiculous amounts of Qi into it. With a quick flex of Qi, she coated the ice-and-metal bars with more ice, essentially creating a frosted glass coating around the whole cage, obscuring the view from the outside.

Even then, it was clear that Avuri was fully focused on holding her techniques together. She stood stock still, eyes closed, with her mouth drawn into a line in intense concentration. No one could see what happened inside, but when parts of the icy shell suddenly showed a red spray here and there, it was clear that it wasn’t going well for Quarris. And a few seconds after that, Avuri let her concentration drop and melted the cage.

Quarris’ body was mangled. There were bits and pieces scattered around the area that had been trapped by the cage, with the main portion of her body laying limply on the center of the floor. It was an unrecognizable bloody mess.

Everyone turned away at the same time Avuri did. No one wanted to look at the gruesome image while Ray and Vyne cleaned up the same way they did after the first trial. And in fairly short order, Emery took to the field along with Firmis.

Firmis looked resolute but unhappy and resigned. Although the bodies weren’t anywhere to be seen, he could easily deduce from the other side having everyone in attendance that his fellows did not fare well. However, as Eiry counted down to begin the trial, he put on a serious face. When Ray’s restraints fell, Firmis immediately called upon his bulky armor and massive hammer.

Emery forged a single shield for herself and a flying sword appeared at her shoulder; but most of her concentration went into expanding her Domain. She connected with Avuri’s, which immediately spiked her Domain to cover the entire room.

As Firmis prepared to charge as his armor finished settling around him, Emery shouted loudly above the din of battle preparation.

“No one move!”

The onlookers stood stock still in response, and Emery was glad they trusted her. She closed her eyes and focused, all the while Firmis was calling taunts and insults. It took Emery only a few moments to practically cover the entire room in invisible blades. She made them face different and odd directions just in case. They had no substance and would have virtually no effect if you moved through one from the back side of it, so random directions made the whole room dangerous.

When Firmis decided he’d had enough of his own bravado, he swung his hammer up to rest on his shoulder. There was a slew of grinding sounds as the hammer knocked its way through several of the blades of sharpened air - and then the haft hit one at just the right angle. It sheared right through the stone, and the hulking hammer head fell with a huge thud to the ground.

Firmis’ armor did a good job protecting him as he swung his arm. The blades had only cut a few deep slices into the armor, but his arm was still in place.

Emery nearly smiled; Glenn was right. This was a great match up for her.

Emery hefted her shield before her and charged. She cleared out the invisible blades in her path. Firmis decided to charge in headlong as well, opening up severe cuts over the entirety of his armor - but there was only a little blood. The armor was thick enough in most places that as long as he was in motion, the stone would destroy the sharpened air before it reached his body.

That was fine.

Emery’s shield crashed into Firmis’ shoulder.The man shouted as he pushed against her. She fought it for only a moment before giving in and letting him push her back. In fact, she simply leapt from the ground, and his shoving did the rest. As she was flung backward, she created a web of sharpened air immediately in front of Firmis. And as he over committed to what he thought would be a test of strength, he stumbled forward.

That small miscalculation cost him dearly. He stumbled into several blades he couldn’t see, which cut up his armor further. But Emery’s strike came in the form of the flying sword, which she had hidden in his blind spot during his mad rush. It slipped behind him and shot straight through the back of one of his legs. After all of the minor cuts it had sustained, the armor covering that leg simply shattered as the blade shot through, nearly severing the leg near the achilles tendon.

Firmis stumbled further after that, his foot not working properly. By the time he had nearly regained his balance, he found himself beset on all sides by flying weapons. Emery had decided to get a little cocky, creating several different weapons rather than a large matching set.

It didn’t matter whether they were spears, swords, or polearms. One and all, they ran Firmis through from fifteen different angles. He managed to stop a few, but not nearly enough to save himself.

When his body slumped, looking like a grotesque pincushion, Eiry called the trials concluded.

As Vyne and Ray once again moved to clear the field, Eiry turned to the whole group and nodded gravely.

“With that, I believe this matter is settled.”