V O L T E R R A His bites land, again and again and again. It feels delightful to finally crash a blow onto this wily opponent, to give the thinner stallion a small taste of what Volterra himself is suffering. The blackened goliath is no stranger to taking heavy damage in battle, but this sensation of utter humiliation is quite new to him. To slip and fall, and to then have his foe's hoof almost peel the flesh from one of his legs and render him hardly able to move...it is a crushing blow not just against his body, but against his ego, too. This is a fight he could have and should have won with ease, and yet he's limping over the finish line, aching, bruised, stiff, sore and burning with embarrassment. Of course, he could still win, but even if he does, he thinks it will be a hollow victory. This simply will not do. He thought himself nigh on invincible; a warlord, a beast, the Indomitable. This fight shows that he has quite a way to go before he earns the right to wear such a title. He needs to iron out these mistakes, rid himself of these infuriating acts of God that condemn him to wanton tumbles and humiliating slips. Of course, a part of him reasons that they are just that - acts of God, unable to be planned for. But he needs to work on how he handles such accidents, such quirks of fate; he cannot allow himself to be hamstrung by them. His redemption must start now. In this howling storm, with rain driving against his skin and his muscles screaming for mercy, with the savage roar of the thunder that mimics the heavy beats of his heart and the lightning flashes that he can hardly see through mud-filled eyes, he must begin to crawl along that path to success. He cannot fall, even though he hurts everywhere. He cannot stop, just because this fight hasn't been easy, just because this opponent hasn't crumbled beneath his ire like so many others have. This cannot be his end - this has to be his beginning. The beast can hardly make out his opponent's face through his mud and rain-filled eyes, but he can smell the hideous stench of corrosion-afflicted flesh. He knows that acrid odour, because his mother had used it to rupture his own skin so many times during his youth. Somehow, inexplicably, he has channeled his dam's magic into his own jaws - he attempts to do it again, but there is nothing across his teeth but saliva. He files this wonder under things to study at a later date, once this fight is done. It is quite by chance that the blackened monolith stumbles backwards; instinct tells him that Seanan will not take his poisoned bites without rebuke, and he is correct. Air fizzing past his whiskers shows him that his foe's hooves have missed his head by a fraction; then there's a sting and an ache as the older male's teeth bite down upon his sensitive muzzle, leaving a light but painful bruise in their wake. It is nothing compared to the constant agony of his almost-crippled right foreleg, or the war-drum pulses of pain through both his badly jarred hindlegs, but it is certainly noticeable and certainly displeasing. He hardly has the energy to move, let alone fight back, but he cannot submit. He will not bend. He deserves every ounce of pain that he suffers through, deserves to break and burn for his stupidity. He will finish this battle, and in the coming days when he can hardly move from the agony, he will grit his teeth and know that this is his pennance. This is his self-flagellation. This is what he will learn from. This is how he will become steel. With a monstrous scream that rivals the thunder ripping the sky above, the monolith extends what feels like the only part of his body that doesn't ache - his muscular, thick neck. Using his sense of smell (the rotten flesh reeks with the corpse-stink, combined with the stallion-stink) and hearing (in between the thunder, there's breathing), the leviathan aims to sink his teeth hard into Seanan's already-injured face and neck. He knows how much it hurts to have recent wounds abused further, and it is the only attack he can think of that doesn't involve the use of his three injured legs. He itches to rear up and thrash his forehooves at that corrosion-marked face, but does not trust his injured hindlegs to hold his colossal weight. So he settles for biting, trying to use the power of jaws and teeth to mask the throbbing shame within his body. ________________ Teaching spar for Seanan ! 3/3 - 783 words

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The joy of amulets! If I hadn't used one, Vol's attack would have missed, so they are actually mega useful! As I say, it's always good to have a stash of amulets around, as they do come in handy when you're in a bit of a pinch :)

Spelling/grammar/prose - Pretty much perfect, again! You've done great on that throughout the fight, which is really good to see. There were a couple of small typos:

'he hears a queers crack' should probably be 'queer' crack
'He feels the scrap of hard ivories' should have been 'scrape' I think?
'obscuring his vision already compromised be darkness and rain' Compromised 'by'
'andthe lingering taste of triumph buoying him' Space between 'and' and 'the'

Again, you had some really amazingly descriptive, beautiful sentences, such as 'Blood runs black on the ghostly paleness of his hide, matting the thin, opalescent fur until he looks partly a creature of darkness himself, as if the demon's corruption has spread to the white wraith and begun to corrupt his corporeal form.' I really like your writing style, and you should score really strongly in this section. Your descriptions of the landscape and your opponent are fantastic and vivid, so well done! :D

Emotion - You've done really well with this throughout the fight, and Seanan is a mega interesting character to read. I love the glimpses of his past, as well as his reaction to Vol's poisonous bites. I loved it so much I would have loved to read even more of it, and as I say in the 'other' section, you could have used your remaining words to cram in some more about this. What you did have was great, though, and you should also do well in this section with the judge.

Attacks - I loved both attacks, and you described them brilliantly. I could picture them clearly in my mind, and they were definitely realistic given the positioning of our characters. One thing you could have done with your bite attack is say that you're using your downwards weight to add extra force into it, which is a nice little quirk to add to your attacks to make them more difficult to react to. Throughout the fight, though, your attacks were pretty much spot-on. There was no confusion with directions, no impossible moves, which is lovely to see :)

Damage taken - I thought you took the damage really well, incorporating the amulet's magic as well as Vol's high damage stat. He rolled a 4, which when added to his 7 damage means it's a pretty hefty blow for him to land. My only tiny quarrel is that you describe the wounds as bleeding when horse teeth are too blunt to really be able to draw blood, however this is only a minor thing and everything else was absolutely spot on!

I'm not sure how much you know about the way damage works - you've done really well with it but I figure I'll throw in this little bit in case you're not 100% clear, as the dice system can be quite confusing. Vol's damage stat at the time of this fight was 7 (it's now 8 because of his buffs, but that doesn't affect this fight). 7 is a fairly high damage stat, so even if he rolls a 1, it's still going to hurt more than if Seanan rolled a 1. Seanan's damage stat is 2, which is really low, and basically means that even when he hits heavily, it doesn't hurt as much as when somebody like Vol hits heavily.

Normally when my character has a critical hit land on them like happened in my previous post, I'd maybe have them break a bone or some other very heavy damage. However, because of Seanan's damage stat, I just had his leg get quite badly hurt - enough to compromise his movement for the rest of the fight, but no lasting or crippling damage/broken bones. It can be tricky to know how much damage to take, but just make sure you look at the damage roll as well as the damage stat. You did really well with this though! :D

Other - It was a great fight thank you! And yes we need a thread afterwards :D You did great, to be honest - I really struggled to find anything to criticize in any of your posts, which is really good considering you're quite new to fighting on here. It made my notes quite hard though lmao because I was like CAN'T FIND ANYTHING BAD TO SAYYYY.

As I said in my first post, you could have used some more of your allotted word count in this last post. Although you fitted everything in nicely, and it's definitely about quality over quantity, you could have used your remaining 180 words to cram in some more descriptions, to really sell it to the judge when they're reading it. It's only a tiny thing and I'd much rather see a shorter post full of goodness than a longer post full of badness, but I think you could have used your remaining words to elaborate more on Seanan's reaction to the bite. What you did have was good - so good that I wanted more! - but remember you can use those remaining words to really add the finishing touches to an already great post :D

Overall, you should be proud of yourself, you did a brilliant job and you dealt well with some weird rolls (even though the rolls were good for you, it can still be quite hard to react to sometimes!)